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NOTABLE SPEECHES 

BY NOTABLE SPEAKERS 
OF THE GREATER WEST 



9/y 



EDITED BY 
HARR WAGNER 

AUTHOR OF 

PACIFIC HISTORY STORIES, PACIFIC NATURE STORIES 

NEW PACIFIC SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY, PATRIOTIC 

QUOTATIONS, CURRENT HISTORY, ETC. 




SAN FRANCISCO 

THE WHITAKER AND RAY COMPANY 

(incorporated) 

1902 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 


Two Copies 


Received 


JAN 22 


1903 


Copyright Entry 

re LASS CL XXc. No. i 

COPY A. 



^i 



Copyright, 1902, by 
The Whitaker and Ray Company 



PREFACE. 

This book has been compiled for the purpose of placing in 
permanent and accessible form some of the more notable 
speeches of the men who have contributed to the intellectual 
development of California. The aim has been to make a col- 
lection of speeches that would be a source of inspiration to 
students and others. The orations of Cicero, Demosthenes, 
and Burke may serve better as models of style, but they lack 
contemporary interest. Thomas B. Reed, in a collection of 
examples of modern eloquence, in ten volumes of four hundred 
pages each, failed to find place for any of the speeches of the 
men of the Greater West. This book shows that in effective 
oral expression California has plenty of material. 

The various selections represent the several types of ora- 
tory, — the after-dinner remarks, the address of welcome, the 
eulogy, the occasional oration, the ethical sermon, and the 
stump speech. 

The editor has drawn upon all classes for his material, — 
the university president, the ship-builder, the merchant, the 
farmer, the lawyer, the editor, the judge, the senator, the 
statesman, the preacher, and the priest. The pages show that 
he has been non-partisan and non-sectarian. 

There is nothing more pitiful than an audience of a thou- 
sand or more people listening patiently but painfully to some 
man whose position or prestige has secured him a place on the 
programme, but whose education in the greatest of all arts — 
the art of oral expression — has been neglected. It is not what 
is said — it is the way it is said — that makes a speaker inter- 
esting. To speak the truth — and speak it effectively — is an 
art worthy of cultivation. California is a land of music, of 
poetry, of art, and of eloquence. May the splendid examples 
of the art of public speaking presented here lead the younger 
generation to study the art of saying things. Senator George 
F. Hoar, in a recent article, said: — 

3 



4 PKEFACE. 

" The longer I live, the more highly I have come to value the 
gift of eloquence. Indeed, I am not sure that it is not the single 
gift most to be coveted by man. It is hard, perhaps impossi- 
ble, to define, as poetry is impossible to define. To be a perfect 
and consummate orator is to possess the highest faculty given 
to man. He must be a great artist, and more. He must be a 
great actor, and more. He must be a master of the great 
things that interest mankind. What he says ought to have as 
permanent a place in literature as the highest poetry. He 
must be able to play at will on the mighty organ, his audi- 
ence, of which human souls are the keys. He must have 
knowledge, wit, wisdom, fancy, imagination, courage, noble- 
ness, sincerity, grace, a heart of fire. He must himself respond 
to every emotion as an iEolian harp to the breeze. He must 

have — 

" ' An eye that tears can on a sudden fill, 

And lips that smile before the tears are gone.' 

He must have a noble personal presence. He must have, in 
perfection, the eye and the voice which are the only and 
natural avenues by which one human soul can enter into and 
subdue another. His speech must be filled with music, and 
possess its miraculous charm and spell, — 

" ' which the posting winds recall, 
And suspend the river's fall.' " 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION. By J. A. Winans. 

Public Speaking of To-day 9 

COLONEL E. D. BAKER. 

American Theatre Speech 15 

THOMAS STARR KING. 

High School Dedication Speech 21 

FREDERICK P. TRACY. 

Pioneer Celebration Speech 29 

NEWTON BOOTH. 

Michigan Bluff Oration 36 

Debit and Credit of the War 38 

On Labor 40 

STEPHEN M. WHITE. 

Eulogy on Senator Stanford 41 

JOSEPH LECONTE. 

The Effect of the Theory of Evolution on Education . . 44 

W. H. L. BARNES. 

Music-Stand Dedication Speech 46 

The Redwoods 50 

" The Spirit of the Phonograph " 52 

SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

Memorial Day Address 53 

"St. Patrick" 65 

Eulogy on General Barnes 84 

Washington: Liberty under Law 88 

GEORGE A. KNIGHT. 

Speech at McKinley's Nomination 100 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

WILLIAM A. CHENEY. page 

America 107 

JOHN F. DAVIS. 

The Discovery op Gold in California 115 

Tribute to the American Flag . 122 

FRANK H. SHORT. 

Our Untimely Dead 126 

DUNCAN E. McKINLAY. 

Abraham Lincoln 136 

D. EDWARD COLLINS. 

Government 147 

WILLIAM R. DAVIS. 

All 's Well 155 

Torch or Shadow — Which ? 165 

REV. WILLIAM RADER. 

Uncle Sam; or, The Reign of the Common People .... 170 

HORACE G. PLATT. 

John Marshall 190 

California 212 

Speech at Banquet to Chauncey M. Depew 216 

W. W. MORROW. 

Chinese Immigration 220 

General Philip Kearny 226 

The Foreign Policy of the United States 229 

IRVING M. SCOTT. 

The Development of Science 234 

ALBERT G. BURNETT. 

Young Men in Politics 256 

D. M. DELMAS. 

Washington 259 



CONTENTS. 7 

M. T. DOOLING. page 

''Our Absent Brothers " 264 

"On the Firing-Line" 267 

REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN. 

The Life Complete 270 

JOHN P. IRISH. 

Memorial Address on Governor Bartlett 281 

HENRY C. DIBBLE. 

Loyalty to the Nation 295 

REV. DR. E. E. BAKER. 

Public Opinion: Its Genesis, Growth, and Value. With an 
Incidental Discussion of Fashion ....;- 305 

Religion and the Nation 318 

T. B. MORTON. 

The Improvement of the Colored Race 323 

Emancipation and Its Obligations 330 

GEORGE T. BROMLEY. 

Uncle George's School Speech 335 

Sloat Monument Address 339 

/ 

GEORGE C. PERKINS. 

Knights Templar Address 341 

Inaugural Address 348 

The Commercial Future of the United States 349 

Why the Chinese Menace our Institutions 350 

JAMES D. PHELAN. 

Verdi Memorial Exercises Address 351 

Goethe-Schiller Memorial Address 356 

P. A. BERGEROT. 

Personal and Political Interference with School Affairs . 359 
Death of President Sadi Marie Carnot 366 

TIREY LAFAYETTE FORD. 

A Tribute to William McKinley 371 

Speech on National Issues 374 



8 CONTENTS. 

HARRIS WEINSTOCK. page 

Jesus the Jew 395 

FRANKLIN K. LANE. 

Campaign Speech 401 

JULIUS KAHN. 

Civil Government for the Philippine Islands 405 

DR. GEORGE C. PARDEE. 

Campaign Speech 414 

EDWARD J. LIVERNASH. 

The Spirit of Commercialism 417 

REV. PETER C. YORKE. 

"Watchman, What of the Night?" 419 

DAVID STARR JORDAN. 

The Strength of being Clean 423 

BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER. 

Introductory Address to the Students 428 



INTRODUCTION. 

PUBLIC SPEAKING OF TO-DAY. 

It may be, a later generation will look back to this period 
of awakening national consciousness as a time when oratory- 
had a new birth. Many notable speeches have been made in 
recent years, and some of them have been gathered into such 
volumes as this. 

But whether or not there is any real oratory to-day, there 
certainly is a surprising amount of public speaking, and es- 
pecially in America. It is equally certain that the American 
people listen to a vast deal of distressingly poor speech-making. 
This is, in part, due to the fact that men without fitness and 
training are dragged upon the platform by the enormous de- 
mand for speakers; but it is also due to certain false ideas in 
regard to what the platform of to-day demands. 

And of these misconceptions, I should place first the idea 
that effective speaking requires little preparation. Because 
some Depew makes a telling speech with apparently little 
preparation, we all decide to shine in the same easy way, for- 
getting that we are not all Depews. We forget that the orator 
who speaks brilliantly on short notice, is probably treating a 
subject in which he is a specialist, and on which he has been 
speaking and writing for years; so that, little matter what 
theme is suggested, he is soon on a familiar trail. And we 
forget, too, that it is one of the littlenesses of great men, that 
they like to give the impression that their great efforts are ex- 
temporaneous. It is safe to say that nearly all the stories told 
of great speeches made "on the spur of the moment" are not 
true. The assertion that Webster's memorable "Reply to 
Hayne" was impromptu is given the lie by Webster's own 
statement, that it was based upon full notes made for another 
speech on the same general subject. Again, he said, "The 
materials of that speech had been lying in my mind for eigh- 

9 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

teen months." He might have added that they were the 
product of years of study. " No man," said .Webster, "is in- 
spired by the occasion; I never was." And again, "There is 
no such thing as extemporaneous acquisition." We are told 
that Lincoln delivered his masterpiece, the Gettysburg Ad- 
dress, impromptu; but authentic history records that he pre- 
pared it with great care. 

A speaker owes it to his audience to make all practicable 
preparation. It may not always be possible or desirable to 
write out the speech. The actual language may be extempo- 
rized in many cases by the skillful; but no plea but that of 
necessity can excuse one from careful consideration and 
arrangement of subject-matter. Perhaps only one out of a 
dozen thoughts occurring to a speaker is really worth express- 
ing. How often are we bored by speakers who go rambling 
on, hiding their tiny kernel in a bushel of chaff, hoping some- 
where to make a point, and looking for a good place to stop. 
Loose expressions, wild assertions, puerile reasoning, pointless 
illustrations, unclinched arguments, distracting digressions, 
make up the speeches of those who do not first bring their 
ideas to the test of formulation, who prepare their speeches 
"while you wait." Those brilliant thoughts we think we 
think — how they disappear before the test of pen and paper! 
But too many speakers, having gained some little glibness, de- 
veloped overmuch the dangerous American "gift of gab," con- 
fident of coming out somewhere, are too indolent to make the 
preparation they owe their audiences. It would be poetic jus- 
tice to make them listen to their own speeches from a phono- 
graph. 

Another false idea which is a cause of much poor speaking, 
arises from a misconception of the term "conversational style." 
There is such a multitude of witnesses testifying that this is 
the style best adapted to the present, that the statement com- 
mands respect. But what does this flexible term mean? It is 
often taken to mean careless, familiar, monotonous, weak talk, 
and to be inconsistent with good form, dignity, strength, and 
feeling. 

Does it mean that I am to speak to five hundred people as 
to one person? Surely, I cannot use the same degree of 



PUBLIC SPEAKING OF TO-DAY. 11 

strength and loudness. I should not be heard; and the first 
requirement is to be heard. But one may be conversational 
at the top of his voice. Suppose a man is shouting across a 
roaring torrent; so long as he is expressing thought to the 
man on the other side, he is conversational. So a speaker 
may be conversational, though he throw his voice out over ten 
thousand people. And does conversational speaking demand 
that one have no more dignity of bearing or language than in 
conversation? But we have all degrees of dignity in conver- 
sation. It depends upon the hearers, the subject, and the oc- 
casion. Some take conversational style to be inconsistent 
with force. But do we never become forceful in conversation? 
Never enthusiastic? The mistaken ideas arise from the fact 
that poor conversation, such as we use in discussing the 
weather, is taken as the basis of comparison. The true con- 
ception is, that our public speech should be based upon our 
best conversation, enlarged and dignified as subject and occa- 
sion are more dignified. It should be conversational in its 
elements. 

Wendell Phillips is counted the great example of this style 
of speaking. His biographer, Dr. Carlos Martyn, says:* "In 
tone and manner, although thus conversational, Mr. Phillips 
was at the same time elevated. . . . The orator should frame 
his style on the basis of plain, common-sense talk; then this 
ought to lead out and up toward vistas of cloudland and the 
music of the spheres. In this regard, Wendell Phillips was a 
model." And Thomas Wentworth Higginson says of the same 
masterly orator: "The keynote to the oratory of Wendell Phil- 
lips lay in this: that it was essentially conversational, — the 
conversational raised to its highest power. . . . The colloquial- 
ism was never relaxed, but it was familiarity without loss of 
dignity. Then, as the argument went on, the voice grew 
deeper, the action more animated, and the sentences came in 
a long sonorous swell, still easy and graceful, but powerful as 
the soft stretching of a tiger's paw." Read the magnificent 
eulogy of Toussaint L'Ouverture by Phillips, and you will not 
find a phrase that would seem affected in any dignified con- 
versation. And yet what power! 

* For several quotations in this article I am indebted to B. G. Smith's Reading 
and Speaking. 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

It is undoubtedly true that public speech has been modified 
in the last fifty years in the direction of simplicity. As the 
heavy manners, the profound bows, of our grandfathers have 
passed, so the "grand manner" has, to a great extent, passed 
from the platform. The speaker no longer puts himself on a 
pedestal. This more self-conscious age will not bear so pa- 
tiently the "highfalutin" and the grandiloquent. 

But it is a serious mistake that many speakers make, when, 
trying to obey the injunction, "Be conversational," they avoid 
grandiloquence, only to fall into over-familiarity. Frank, close 
relation with one's audience is perhaps the very essence of the 
conversational style; but genuine dignity should never be 
sacrificed. The average American audience of to-day ap- 
proves of it as much as did the audiences of Demosthenes. 
Again, in avoiding the rolling oratund, which the old-school 
orator was too likely to use on all occasions, speakers often 
adopt a weak, slovenly enunciation. In seeking a conversa- 
tional diction free from the heavy Latin words and construc- 
tions, they fall into vulgarity. Yet, any intelligent audience, 
educated or uneducated, in city or in country, knows that the 
platform demands good English. Rightly considered, the 
conversational style holds no speaker back from his best. It 
requires conformity to no set standards; it is as flexible as in- 
dividuality. It is not inconsistent with dignity and elevation, 
though it is at war with bombast and grandiloquence. 

Nor is it opposed to strength, earnestness, enthusiasm. We 
are sometimes told that the speech best adapted to this time 
has little emotion in its composition. The statement is almost 
absurd, unless oratory is indeed dead. The most notable 
writers on oratory, from Aristotle down, have found its most 
distinctive element in persuasion. But persuasion is convic- 
tion plus appeal to motives, feelings, that control the will. 
Oratory deals with living issues, personal truths " that come 
home to men's business and bosoms." It looks to action; 
and we never act until some emotion — love of self, of home, 
of friends, of country — moves the will. The public speech 
that has no emotional element is only an essay vocalized. 

Is not the truth right here, — that this age is less tolerant 
of the insincere display of emotion? That it distinguishes 



PUBLIC SPEAKING OF TO-DAY. 13 

more sharply between sentiment and sentimentality, between 
pathos and bathos, emotion and emotionalism? It is more in- 
clined to demand facts, arguments, the appeal to reason, first. 
It likes less the open, direct appeal to feelings; it prefers being 
inspired to being exhorted. Yet there is nothing to which the 
present-day audience responds so quickly and so heartily as to 
a touch of sincere feeling. We still have hearts as well as 
heads. Yet many men, disgusted by some ranter, suppress 
the emotions they really feel, and reduce their speaking to dull 
indifference. To pass over ineffectiveness, in which the two 
are about equal, which is the more insincere, — the man who 
feigns emotion, or the man who suppresses the earnestness he 
really feels? When public speech dispenses with the emo- 
tional element, it loses its best excuse for being; for the mes- 
sage that is cold, that does not depend to some extent upon 
the warm energy of personality, were better intrusted to cold 
type. 

It has not been my privilege to review the contents of this 
volume; but I am willing to risk the testing of the above ideas 
by the speeches that follow. The fact that they have won 
success and have been remembered, gives me confidence that 
here will be found no lack of careful preparation, of dignity 
of thought or expression, of lofty imagination, or of the glow 
of genuine human feelings. 

J. A. WlNANS. 

Univeesity op Califoenia, 
November 10, 1902. 



NOTABLE SPEECHES BY NOTABLE SPEAKERS 
OF THE GREATER WEST. 



COLONEL E. D. BAKER. 

Colonel Edward Dickinson Baker, lawyer, statesman, soldier, ora- 
tor, was born in London, England, in 1811, and was killed in battle at 
Ball's Bluff, Virginia, October 21, 1861. He was elected to Congress 
from Illinois in 1844. In 1859 he ran for Congress, on the Republican 
ticket, in California, but was defeated. He then moved to Oregon, and 
within a year was elected a Senator of the United States. A volume of 
his speeches has been published. John Swett, the eminent pioneer 
educator, remembers the American Theatre speech, and says its thrill- 
ing effect upon the audience was beyond description. The following 
extract, taken from this speech, is published in Eloquence of the Far 
West, by Oscar T. Shuck, and is an excellent example of Colonel 
Baker's style. 

AMERICAN THEATRE SPEECH. 

[Delivered in the American Theatre, October 26, 1860. The theatre 
building stood on the site of the present-day Halleck Block, on the 
northeast corner of Sansome and Halleck streets.] 

I owe more thanks than my life can repay; and I wish all 
Oregon were here to-night. We are a quiet, earnest, pastoral 
people, but by the banks of the Willamette there are many 
whose hearts would beat high as yours if they were here. 
I owe you much, but I owe more to Oregon. [Laughter.] 
My heart is very full and yqyj glad. Oregon regards herself 
as one with California, — the interests of the Pacific as the 
same, whether at the mouth of the Columbia or the Golden 
Gate. More than that, she believes that the interests of the 
Union are one, and she intends to stand by it. 

Just when I ought to make the best speech of my life, I 
know I '11 make the very worst. Four years ago this night, 
in front of this very house, I had the honor to attempt to lay 
a little deeper and broader the principles of Republicanism 
by trying to show why we should elect as President an emi- 
nent citizen who, I believe, is here to-night [turning to the box 
where sat John C. Fremont with his family]. We were a 
young and untried party then. I recollect saying then, that, 

15 



16 COLONEL E. D. BAKER. 

as "revolutions never go backwards," whoever became 
Republican then would remain one. We have lost nobody 
since, and are gaining everybody. [Laughter.] I know we 
are going to win. All signs in heaven and earth approve it. 
Still, on the eve of battle, though in every skirmish they have 
shown superiority, the leader may well pass before the line; 
and if I might assume that position for a single moment, as 
the shouts of victory echo from wing to wing, from front to 
rear, I would pass along to assure the fearful and confirm the 
bold. [Applause.] 

They used to say that we were a sectional party. We sec- 
tional ! Who, then, is national? Breckinridge will get no 
state at the North, and the Bell and Everett men say he will 
get none at the South. [Laughter.] Sectional, are we? We 
used to reply: First, freedom can't be sectional; it must be 
national. [Here there was some struggle near the door. 
"Heavens! let us get out; we're sweltering!" cried a voice. 
"You can't stir a peg; you must stand it," answered another. 
Soon all was quiet again.] 

But they used to affirm that, as a party, we mean to deal 
unfairly with a portion of the states. When have we said or 
intimated anything of the sort? If we are not yet represented 
in every state, whose fault is it? They won't let us go South 
to make Republicans. [Laughter.] Mr. Douglas intimates 
that Mr. Lincoln can't go South to see his mother. But, in 
this view of the matter, we are getting over our sectionalism 
very fast. Have you heard from St. Louis? Have you ever 
heard of Frank Blair? Have you heard anything from west- 
ern Virginia? Anything from the poor white folks of the 
South? If it is sectional not to get many votes in one section, 
how many will Breckinridge get in New York? All he will 
get there will be by pretending not to run. [Laughter.] How 
many votes will he get in Illinois? Will he get half as many 
votes in Illinois as Lincoln will in Missouri? 

But I prefer to test it in another way. I deny that in th 
beginning, or in the end, we desire to interfere with slavery in 
any way where it exists by law. I deny that we desire to in- 
terfere with slavery in the territories where it has been put 
there by the people. And as a party and as individuals we 



AMERICAN THEATRE SPEECH. 17 

-.ave more interest in preserving the Union than you have. 
We never proposed — you never heard one of us propose — to 
dissolve the Union. Many of us were old Whigs, and we have 
been beaten out of our boots — not once only, but all the time. 
We deplored the election of James Buchanan as a national 
calamity. They got their President, the House, the Senate, 
the supreme court. The} 7 got the executive, the legislative 
powers, the judiciary. Did you ever hear us threaten, imagine, 
or predict the dissolution of the Union? [Applause.] 

But how stand you Breckinridge men on this subject? I 
will not say that every Breckinridge man is a disunionist; but 
I will say that every disunionist is a Breckinridge man. 
[Great laughter and applause.] The difference is like the 
Irishman's pronunciation in talking with an Englishman by 
the name of Footney. " Mr. Futney," said the Irishman, " you 
and I agree." — -"Very well," says Mr. Footney; "but my name 
is Footney." — "Exactly so, Mr. Futney; Futney it is, then." 
— "But, sir," says the Englishman, "my name is not Futney, 
but Footney, — F, double o, t, — Footney." — " By the man that 
made Moses, what is the difference between Futney and Fut- 
ney?" [Great laughter.] Every disunionist, from Yancey 
up and down, is a Breckinridge man. Here, I understand, 
their stump-speakers boldly proclaim the doctrine. The 
Senator from Oregon said, "If the South don't stand up for 
her rights" — that is, secede — "they don't deserve to have 
them." We, on the other hand, mean to submit to everything, 
but we will have the Union. Oregon is the farthest from the 
center, but I believe she would be the last state to leave it. 
[Applause.] Yours, one of the youngest states, would be one 
of the last to leave it. We don't mean, we won't mean, we 
never shall mean, to dissolve. It is easy to talk of Union 
when you have the offices; but when you have n't them, how do 
you talk? I repeat, we don't propose to dissolve the Union, 
and we don't propose to let anybody else dissolve it. [Cheers.] 
' But they say, "Our sufferings are intolerable; and if you 
elect Lincoln, we'll dissolve the Union!" W^e propose to give 
them a chance to try it. What could Lincoln do without the 
Senate, and the House, and the supreme court to make a dis- 
solution necessary? He can't touch a dollar; he can't ap- 



18 COLONEL E. D. BAKER. 

point an officer; he can't command a soldier to a single 
point; he cannot free a slave. But suppose Lincoln gets the 
House, — and I think he will, — suppose he gets a majority of 
the Senate too. If he gets a majority of the Senate and the 
House and the people, I should think it would be pretty hard 
to dissolve. Some of the judges of the supreme court are get- 
ting very old; but, as Jefferson said of judges, they never die, 
and few resign [laughter], and it will be a long time before the 
Republicans can get the power to do anything that the public 
voice and conscience will not approve. . . . 

But here somebody recovers his wits and seems to address 
me, "Colonel Baker, what say you at Seward's 'irrepres- 
sible conflict'?" Why, this: If Mr. Seward had that opinion, 
I think he did right to express it. And, I apprehend, it 's 
your opinion too. [Laughter.] You don't think slavery is 
going to last forever. God is too good for that. A thousand 
years are as one day in his sight, and it may take some time 
for slavery utterly to decay! I hope disease won't last always; 
I don't know that death will. I very much doubt if slavery 
will. You Breckinridge men, if there is a little vein of piety in 
you, inherited from your mother [laughter], even you must 
hope that slavery will be abolished some day. Henry Clay — 
and he was no abolitionist — used to felicitate himself that 
by the freed slaves of our land civilization would yet be car- 
ried to the banks of the Niger. Read Pope's Messiah. I 
don't know that Pope was an abolitionist, though inspired 
poets are apt to be. [Applause.] Homer was, Shakespeare 
was, the Bible was; and Pope would be in very good com- 
pany if he was. So long as there is a slave and a master in 
the world, the slave's heart will throb for freedom. Educate 
him, and he will fight for it; nerve him, and he will die for it; 
and you, to save your soul, can't help saying, "Hurrah for the 
weaker side!" [Cheers.] I would shoulder my rifle to sup- 
press insurrection; and yet, in my own impulses, in the depth 
of my own reflection, I feel that if Mr. Seward, looking for- 
ward with the eye of statesmanship and philosophy, said the 
conflict was irrepressible, God go with him! I indorse the 
sentiment. [Tremendous cheers.] 

But my inquiring friend forgets how Mr. Seward qualified 



AMERICAN THEATRE SPEECH. 19 

the remark; that it was by and under the constitution, and 
not otherwise, that the conflict was to go on. And at last it is 
but the opinion of a great philosopher and statesman referring 
the matter to an all-wise Providence. 

Up in my country we often see men afraid of being suspected 
of sympathizing too much with the negro. One was saying 
there, the other day, "I ain't one of your d — d abolitionists; 
why, my uncle had a nigger." [Laughter.] Now, I am very 
willing to, and I will, confess I have a sympathy with the 
negro race, with all slaves, with all who are in sorrow and 
misfortune; and would to God I could deliver them all ! 
[Applause.] I have sympathy with a man who has a scolding 
wife, or a smoky chimney, or the fever and ague; though I 
might not advise my friend to whip his wife, or pull down his 
chimney, or take arsenic for his fever and ague; nor do I feel 
myself bound to run a tilt to free all negroes. When I go to 
church, and the preacher says, "Have mercy upon all men!" 
I don't respond, "Good Lord! upon all white men!" They 
make the mistake of supposing that if we have human feelings, 
we are plotting against them. We live in a land of constitu- 
tional law. Whatever is nominated in the bond, we abide. 
If I own ten thousand cattle worth one hundred thousand 
dollars, I have but one vote, and that is my own. If another 
owns one hundred negroes worth one hundred thousand dol- 
lars, he has sixty votes; the ownership of five negroes conveys 
the right of three votes, — equals the representative power of 
three white men. 

That is hard, but it is in the bond, and we abide it. It is 
hard to compel me to give up to slavery a man on your simple 
affidavit that he is a slave. But it is in the compact, and we 
stand it. 

There need be no fear of intestine feuds; there need be no 
threats of disunion. In the presence of God, — I say it rever- 
ently, — freedom is the rule and slavery the exception. It is 
a marked, guarded, perfected exception. There it stands! 
If public opinion must not touch its dusky cheek too roughly, 
be it so; but we will go no further than the terms of the com- 
pact. We are a city set on a hill. Our light cannot be hid. 
As for me, I dare not, I will not, be false to freedom! [Ap- 



20 COLONEL E. D. BAKER. 

plause.] Where in youth my feet were planted, there my 
manhood and my age shall march. I will walk beneath her 
banner. I will glory in her strength. I have seen her, in his- 
tory, struck down on a hundred chosen fields of battle. I have 
seen her friends fly from her; I have seen her foes gather 
around her; I have seen them bind her to the stake; I have 
seen them give her ashes to the winds, regathering them, that 
they might scatter them yet more widely. But when they 
turned to exult, I have seen her again meet them face to face, 
clad in complete steel, and brandishing in her strong right 
hand a flaming sword red with insufferable light! [Vehement 
cheering.] And I take courage. The genius of America will 
at last lead her sons to freedom! [Great applause.] 

People of California! you meet soon, as is your custom every 
four years, to conduct a peaceful revolution. There is no dan- 
ger here. Disunion is far away. The popular heart is right. 
It is a plain, honest, simple duty you have to perform. All 
the omens are good, and the best of omens is a good cause. 
On the Pacific Coast we have labored long; we have been 
scoffed, beleaguered, and beset. ■ One year ago, I, your cham- 
pion, in yoxir fair state, — my own state then, — was beaten in a 
fair contest! With my heart somewhat bruised, my ambition 
crushed, one week later I stood by the body of my friend 
Broderick, slaughtered in your cause, and I said "How long?" 
[Sensation.] The tide is turned. The warrior, indeed, rests. 
He knows no waking; nor word, nor wish, nor prayer, can 
call him from his lone abode. I speak to those who loved him; 
and in another and higher arena I shall try to speak for him 
[a rumble of applause, increasing at last to a great demon- 
stration], and I shall say that the people who loved him so 
well, and among whom his ashes rest, are not forgetful of the 
manner of his life or the method of his death. 

People of San Francisco! you make me very happy and 
very proud. Your kind words cheer, as they have often 
cheered before. Another state, generous and confiding beyond 
any man's deserts, has placed me where I may serve both her 
and you. And now, thanking you again and again, I bid you 
a cordial, affectionate, heartfelt farewell. [The whole audience 
arose and cheered, and cheered again. It was half-past ten, 
and the orator had spoken two hours and a quarter.] 



THOMAS STARR KING. 

Thomas Stakr King was born in New York in 1824, and died in San 
Francisco in 1863. His noted lectures on "Goethe" and "Substance 
and Shadow" gave him national fame, but his greatest reputation as 
an orator was made during the years of 1860, 1861, and 1863, in Califor- 
nia. In the Presidential election of 1860 he spoke on "Webster and 
the Constitution" and on "Washington and the Union," and swept 
everything before him by his magnificent eloquence. 

HIGH SCHOOL DEDICATION SPEECH. 

[Delivered September 19, 1860, at the dedication of the High School 
Building, Powell Street, San Francisco.] 

This audience, representing the mothers and fathers, the 
official forces and the rising life of this young, strange city, 
are to be congratulated on the event and occasion that calls 
us together. We welcome you to the service here with pride 
and joy. 

The corner-stone of any important representative edifice is 
laid with elaborate ceremonial. It is well to foster public 
interest in such forms. And it seems to me that it would be 
as fitting to recognize with public rejoicing the completion of a 
noble building, the moment when the workmen lay the last 
stone of the turret, the apex of the spire, the final tile on the 
dome. It was when the corner-stone of the earth was laid, 
that " the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy." Can we believe — though we have no record 
or hint of the halleluiahs — that there was less jubilance 
amongst the holy hosts when "the heavens and the earth were 
finished, and all the host of them," and "God saw everything 
that he had made, and, behold, it was very good"? 

We are here to rejoice in this completed work. There is 
very little in the building itself, though it is commodious and 
cheerful, to awaken any enthusiasm. But as a schoolroom — 
a new structure to befriend civilization, in a state where the 

21 



22 THOMAS STARR KING. 

forces of good and evil meet in a more open and demonstrative 
wrestle, probably, than upon any other equal area on the globe 
— it does invite us to be glad, and to express our joy that it 
is added to the landscape of the city, and has sprung out of a 
deepening popular faith in the worth of education. 

And yet it is not simply a new schoolhouse that we are to 
consecrate to its noble offices. It is the symmetry of an edu- 
cational system in the city that we complete and establish. It 
is truly the top-stone, the crown, of an ideal edifice, whose co- 
ordinate parts are the excellent common schools of the city, 
that we now lift to its place with rejoicing. If there were any 
influence to be exerted by the establishment of this high 
school in drawing away the public interest from the grammar 
schools, the public pride in them, the public readiness to be 
taxed to sustain them, there would be no occasion for grati- 
tude in the completion of this building; this would be an 
unfortunate service and hour. The grammar schools are the 
true fountains of health and power in a community. What- 
ever tends to slight them, or reduce their efficiency, or throw 
the shadow of public indifference upon them, is to be deplored, 
and to be strenuously resisted. The city and state are far 
more deeply interested in the general diffusion of the elements 
of knowledge than in the concentration of learning in a small 
percentage of the youth of our community. We want to equip 
tens of thousands for the toils and struggles of life, not to pol- 
ish a few hundreds for a better chance to seize its prizes and 
wear its honors. We must never forget this. And if the erec- 
tion of this high school into permanence threatened to abate 
the importance, or lower the dignity, or drain the energy of 
the grammar schools, this building, though it were a hundred 
times more elegant, though it were seemly in proportions as 
the Parthenon of Athens, would be a mistake and a disaster. 

I cannot but think, however, that we strengthen the ordi- 
nary schools of the city by confirming this one, and leading 
the community to regard it with more favor and pride. Not 
only is the standard of a free education raised, but the earlier 
removal from the grammar schools of the scholars who wish 
to pursue a higher grade of studies, concentrates the interest 
and energies of the teachers there upon the progress of the 



HIGH SCHOOL DEDICATION SPEECH. 23 

average of students. The ordinary schools can hardly fail to 
give more thorough training in the elements of English educa- 
tion by relieving the teachers from the responsibility of carry- 
ing small upper classes through a range of studies far above the 
average lessons; and the ambition that is excited to enter the 
high school must be felt, after a while, as a very serviceable 
stimulant throughout the ranks of the scholars below. Wher- 
ever the plan has been tried of projecting schools on the sys- 
tem of primary, grammar, and high, it has been found that 
each grade helps the one beneath. No New England cities 
now, I am sure, could think of parting with their high 
schools. They would account it deliberate mutilation of the 
symmetry of the educational system, and treason against the 
mental rights of the scholars who can spare two or three extra 
years for instruction and discipline. 

And we must not fail to take into account the needs and 
rights of the hundred and fifty youths, of both sexes, in our 
city, who are ready and willing to postpone their entrance into 
practical life for the sake of a more generous culture. The 
free-school system has duties to them as manifest and binding 
as to the lowest class in a grammar school. Let us rejoice 
that we can fulfill them in entire harmony with our duties to 
the mass of the children whose education is intrusted to us. 
Let us rejoice that we can see that all jealousies are unwise. 
Let us be glad and grateful, to-day, that we strengthen the 
whole structure of our teaching organization by this crowning 
school to which we here devote an excellent building. The 
masons lay strong and compact the stones which make the 
floor of the porch to an edifice after the Grecian style. They 
rear column after column along its front. But when the 
beautiful entablature is lifted aloft, to rest on the pillars, there 
is not only completed proportion, but more strength. Each 
column is firmer; the base itself is fortified; and the edifice 
stands in harmony with the force of gravitation. So, we be- 
lieve, it is here. We send strength into the important schools 
below, the pillars and pavement of our public welfare, by 
the import of this service of dedication. And I believe the 
whole system of education would attain final symmetry, and 
be still stronger in all its parts, if we had not only high 



24 THOMAS STARR KING. 

schools in our cities and large towns, but a free and largely 
planned university besides, in every state, in which the sons 
and daughters of the poorest could obtain the best training 
which the resources of the state might afford, free of cost. 
When we get this, we shall have the majestic dome overarch- 
ing and strengthening our intellectual temple. 

But, very likely, in all this, I am speaking needless words. 
Perhaps I have done wrong to assume or hint that there can 
be any question, in any quarter, of the value of the school 
whose home we consecrate here, or of its advantageous relation 
to the other schools of which we are justly proud. Let us 
turn to other considerations that should awaken grateful joy 
here. 

It is now, throughout this state, the time of rejoicing in the 
harvest. We have been reading in the papers glowing accounts 
of many district agricultural fairs. This very day the yearly 
state fair is to be inaugurated in the capital. What interest 
is felt, throughout the state, in the improvement of stock, in 
the new varieties of fruit, in the production of more efficient 
and economical machinery for planting, reaping, thrashing, 
stacking! The man who refines a breed of sheep; the man 
who brings from his ranch a calf or colt perfect accord- 
ing to its type; the man who displays the noblest yoke 
of steers; the cultivator who offers to view the soundest and 
sweetest plums, the most lovely and savory peach, the weigh- 
tiest cluster of grapes, or who can say the wisest word about 
preventing the curled leaf in peach trees, the rust in wheat, 
the "foul brood" among bees, — yes, the man who produces a 
mammoth pumpkin, a monstrous sweet potato, a beet that will 
half fill a barrel, a watermelon as ample as Daniel Lambert 
in girth, is heard of throughout a county, perhaps throughout 
the limits of the state. 

What interest in education can we bring yet into competi- 
tion with this scientific enthusiasm for vegetable and animal 
products? What would the honest answer be, taking the state 
through, if we should ask which the people of the state were 
more concerned about, — a better type of calves, or a higher 
grade of children; more efficient grazing-grounds, or more 
thorough school training; vineyards that should double their 



HIGH SCHOOL DEDICATION SPEECH. 25 

profits, or methods of education that should equip pupils 
twice as efficiently for noble success in life; the reclaiming of 
tule-lands, or the gathering of twice as many youth, who now 
receive no instruction, into the intellectual folds where they 
may have a teacher's care? Alas! we know what it would be. 
If one tithe, or one hundredth part, of the watchful, patient, 
cultured, and strenuous exertion that has been expended by 
the general community on peach-raising, short-horned cat- 
tle, the perfecting of horses and bee-culture, during the last 
five years, had been devoted to the training of children, and 
fitting them to be competent masters of their fathers' colts, 
and meadows, and carrot-fields, the state, to-day, would be 
immeasurably advanced, beyond its present attainment, in 
civilization. We should not read such sad statistics as are 
forced upon us now, showing that hardly more than a third of 
the children of the state attend regularly any school. 

There is really some danger that we shall be pulled down, 
materialized, half-barbarized, by the very advance and splen- 
dor of our scientific control of the elements of agricultural 
opulence. One of our poets tells us that now — 

" Things are in the saddle, 
And ride mankind." 

It behooves us to be a little careful, lest we cultivate beeves 
and racers to such superiority over ourselves that they shall get 
the upper hand, and we find ourselves, after a generation or 
so, in which animals rise and children sink, yoked and har- 
nessed, owned by our Durhams, and Alderneys, and Morgans, 
and perhaps fatted for their advanced and dominant appetites. 

The spiritual forces must be started soon in states like this, 
and trained to ten times their present vigor, or we shall be 
unable to wield the majestic armor and implements of our 
science and materialistic culture. And this building, which 
lifts the torch of education higher, as a beacon to the state, 
which will turn out nobler specimens of young manhood and 
womanhood, invites us, by peculiar fitness, in this harvest- 
time, to rejoice in its completion, and to express our gratitude 
by elaborate ceremonial and reverent prayer. 

And we should rejoice also, to be here to-day in order to 
pay a conscious and deliberate tribute to the service of teachers 



26 THOMAS STARR KING. 

in our civilization. Every time I enter a school-building I 
travel back to the time, twenty years ago (when I was a young 
man), when my name was enrolled in the army of instructors. 
During the three years of service appointed to me in that de- 
partment, I learned so much of the difficulties and responsi- 
bilities of the office, that the stepping into a pulpit seemed 
like passing into an easier sphere of duty. It is not on ab- 
stract grounds and observation, but on trials which gave me 
my first knowledge of what serious responsibility is, and of 
how closely moral forces must be allied with intellectual 
ones in every successful school, that my own reverence for the 
teacher's call and duty is based. And from that day to this it 
has been widening and deepening. 

We do not pay our social reverence wisely as yet, even in 
our most advanced and thoughtful communities. The men 
who do the most for the world are those who work scientifi- 
cally upon the land — increasing its productiveness without 
exhausting its fertility — and the men who increase the mental 
and moral forces of the state. These classes are the fountains 
of lasting power, and the true conservators of public health 
and vigor. In a truly ordered society, these classes would re- 
ceive the heartiest and most stable honor. 

But as yet, alas! even in the most Christian districts of 
society, the question is scarcely raised, as a condition and 
gauge of respect, what the relation is between his employment 
and the permanent benefit of the community — what the moral 
aroma is of a man's gold and position. And so the best men 
work with very little recognition. The most useful ministers 
are those who work through years of quiet fidelity, encour- 
aging good purposes in the village circle, warning with sincere 
and uneloquent unction, the humble and steady friend of hum- 
ble people, threading the life of a small community, through 
more than the years of a generation, with a golden influence 
of charity, and fortunate in not having to see their names in 
half the issues of the newspaper press. Some of the purest 
pages of heroism might be copied from the long careers of 
country physicians, who spend themselves without the patron- 
age and solace of cultured society, and cross the line of old 
age without a competence. 



HIGH SCHOOL DEDICATION SPEECH. 27 

In the case of teachers, however, the fact is peculiarly strik- 
ing. Think what an influence, during the past ten years, has 
been exerted upon the intellect and character of the best por- 
tions of our country, by the ambition of teachers to be more 
efficient in their work, by the establishment of journals of 
education, by county, district, and state conventions of in- 
structors, not sunned by public applause, not paid for by the 
public either, in which the wisest unfold the best results of 
their experience, and the youngest are stimulated by the con- 
tagious enthusiasm of the leading masters of the profession! 

"Profession," did I say? No. Here is the injustice; here 
is the proof of the marvelous infidelity of our public as yet to 
the service which can hardly be surpassed by any other type. 
American liberty and hopes are based on comprehensive edu- 
cation, — mental and moral, — and we do not yet recognize the 
teacher's calling as one of the "learned professions." There 
is the degree of M. D., a title of respect, for every one who 
enters the ranks of the healers by the regular door. Every 
clergyman has his prefix of "Rev.," which floats him some- 
times like a cork upon waters where he could not swim. 
" D. D." is conferred, every year, upon many a man who is no 
scholar in Christian history or dogmatics. I have known 
cases where LL. D. has been affixed, by prominent colleges, to 
the names of men who could not have told what the two L's, 
with a period after them, were the abbreviation of. But there 
is no title for teachers. And I am ignorant of the fact if any 
university or college has yet sought out an eminent, conse- 
crated, thoroughly efficient teacher, to confer upon him or her 
any title of honor as an acknowledgment of personal service 
to society, or the rank of the calling to which he or she is 
pledged. 

We must do what we can to repair this injustice, — we who 
know the value of the office, the grand proportion of the gifts 
that are so often brought to it, and the nobleness of the spirit 
in which those gifts are frequently dedicated. 

Let us make this festival time, in the consecration of this 
building, a season in which we pledge ourselves to greater 
interest in the school cause in this city and state. It is not in 
the structure we are interested, so much as in the edifice of 



28 THOMAS STAKE KING. 

education itself, which has been erected here by faithful, far- 
seeing men, against the opposition of lazy wealth and skepti- 
cal hearts. It is not the porch and hall and seats and roof 
that we are grateful for, so much as the wise management and 
skilled instruction, which, so successful in the past, are to have 
a better inclosure for their operation in years to come. 

Would that the services of this day might be more joyous 
and welcome by the appearance here of the philosophical ap- 
paratus that is needed by the teachers, and would be in vari- 
ous ways a benefit to the community! The three thousand 
dollars which it would cost ought to be contributed by the 
wealth of San Francisco the next week, and would be, if we 
were not still in our public life so blind to the immense mean- 
ing and value of public education. And let us cherish a deeper 
respect for the office and influence of every good teacher, as we 
recognize here anew the solid truth of a noble American poet's 
words: — 

" The riches of the commonwealth 
Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health ; 
And more to her than gold or grain, 
The cunning hand and cultured brain. 

" She heeds no skeptic's puny hands, 
While near her school the church-spire stands ; 
Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule, 
While near her church-spire stands the school." 



FREDERICK P. TRACY. 

Frederick Palmer Tracy was a California pioneer, an attorney at 
law in San Francisco, and one of the founders of the Republican party 
in California. He was an eloquent political speaker in the early days 
when his party was in a hopeless minority. He was a member of the 
California delegation to the Chicago convention which nominated 
Abraham Lincoln for President of the United States, and was appointed 
on the Committee on Platform and Resolutions. He drafted the famous 
platform of that convention, which was adopted by the committee as 
he wrote it, with only slight changes. He was engaged in the Lincoln 
campaign to stump the state of New York, and died during that cam- 
paign, worn out by exposure and loss of sleep. 

PIONEER CELEBRATION SPEECH. 

[Delivered before the Society of California Pioneers, September 9, 
1858, at their celebration of the eighth anniversary of the admission of 
the state into the Union.] 

Mr. President, and Members of the Society of Califor- 
nia Pioneers, — The great Napoleon said, "I will review at 
Cherbourg the marvels of Egypt," and that saying, just now 
inscribed upon the pedestal of his statue standing amidst the 
new and massive fortifications of Cherbourg, startles England 
as a menace of war. England may rest in quiet. There will 
be no attempt to renew the marvels of Bonaparte's Egyptian 
campaign. But both Napoleons may have dreamed that in 
the gigantic moles of Cherbourg they might rival the grandeur 
and the strength of the Pyramids, and in its sculptures the 
glorious beauty of Memnon and the Sphinx. And, truly, the 
vast dead marvels of Egypt's architecture may be rivaled. 
Other tombs and temples may be hewn in the rocks; other 
columns and obelisks may rise in beauty; other sphinxes may 
in silence propose their eternal riddles to other lands; and 
other pyramids may lift their mountain forms over the hushed 
plains crouching at their feet. Greater marvels even than 
Egypt ever saw may be born of necessity and science, and not 

29 



30 FREDERICK P. TRACY. 

Cherbourg alone, but this and other lands may yet behold 
them. 

But who, in any age or country, or with any people, shall 
renew the marvels of California, and give to the world a sec- 
ond example of a nation so suddenly created, gifted with the 
strength of Hercules in its cradle, — born in the purple of its 
empire that shall endure forever? A little more than ten 
years ago, California lay in the indolence and silence of that 
summer noonday in which she had been basking for ages. A 
few idle villages slept by the shores of her bays; a few squalid 
ranches dotted the interior with patches of wretched cultiva- 
tion. There were herds of cattle in her valleys, but they were 
almost valueless for the want of a market. There were 
churches, but their chiming bells woke only the echoes of a 
vast solitude. The sun ripened only the harvest of wild oats 
on the hills, and the beasts of prey made their lairs in security 
close by the abodes of men. Seldom did a merchant ship 
spread her white wings in the offing; seldom did the vaquero 
in his solitary rounds hear the dip of the oar upon our rivers. 
Silence, deep and everlasting, brooded over all the land, and 
the lone oaks on the hills appeared like sentinels keeping 
guard around the sleeping camp of nature. 

The cession of the country to the United States by the treaty 
of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and the discovery of gold in the early 
part of the year 1848, changed the whole scene as if by the 
power of magic. As in the naumachy of old time, the dry 
arena was instantly converted into a great lake on which con- 
tending navies struggled for the mastery; so, instantly on the 
discovery of gold, California was filled with people as if they 
had risen from the earth. The port of San Francisco was 
crowded with vessels. The rivers were alive with the multi- 
tudes that made them their highway, and the din of commerce 
broke forever the silence of centuries. It seemed as if the 
people had stolen the lamp of Aladdin, and wished for the 
creation, not of palaces merely, but of royal cities, and an 
empire of which these should be the chief places; and at their 
wish, the cities of our state arose, not by slow, toilsome growth, 
but complete and princely at their very birth. The rattle of 
the shovel and the pick was heard in every mountain gorge, 



PIONEER CELEBRATION SPEECH. 31 

and a wide stream of gold flowed from the sierra to the sea. 
The plains, rejoicing in their marriage to industry, bore fruit- 
fully their yellow harvests. Villages, hamlets, farm-houses, 
schools, and churches sprang up everywhere; wharves were 
built, roads were opened; stage-coaches and steamers crowded 
all profitable routes; lands, houses, and labor rose to an enor- 
mous value; and plenty, with her blessings, crowned the roll- 
ing year. 

I paint no exaggerated picture of this magical change. We 
have seen it with our own eyes; and though it seems like a 
dream, so is it unlike anything in the history of the world, in 
the range of human experience, or in the field where imagina- 
tion is wont to revel. We know that it is all true, and its 
truth is its greatest marvel. Look around you! Ten years 
only have passed since the first gold was discovered in this ter- 
ritory. How brief is the period of ten years in the history of 
a nation! Yet what do you now behold? Our vote for Presi- 
dent of the United States in 1856 was about 110,000, represent- 
ing a population of 500,000. The taxable property of this 
state is listed at about $160,000,000. Our annual exports, 
exclusive of gold, amount to at least $12,000,000. Of gold 
itself, we have produced, since the beginning of 1848, not less 
than $700,000,000. And we have now more than 500,000 
acres of land inclosed for farming purposes. Truly, "the wil- 
derness and the solitary place have been made glad, and the 
desert has rejoiced and blossomed as the rose." From the 
point of observation that we occupy to-day, as from some 
mountain top, we look far down the vale of peace, where this 
wide river of our prosperity flows, towards the distant and 
undescribed future, and hope that when the mist and shadow 
shall be lifted from that future we may find that California 
has been floating onward towards wealth, and power, and 
high renown. 

Yet it is not to be concealed that we have reason to fear that 
California's future may not be as prosperous as her past. If 
free institutions shall be established here in the simplicity of 
truth and justice; if public morality shall be substituted for 
the wild, passionate life of our earlier times; if industry and 
frugality shall expel indolence and thriftlessness from among 



32 FREDERICK P. TRACY. 

us; if the people shall be made to feel that California is their 
home, and be controlled by the great ambition of making it a 
home worth loving and defending; if we shall be united for 
the promotion and protection of our own state interests, and 
shall banish from among us all influence of those who do not 
belong to us, — then indeed we cannot fail to secure a glorious 
future for our young state. But if we fail in the great duties 
of upright men and patriotic citizens, we can only expect to — 

' ' Run anew the evil race the old lost nations ran ; 
And die, like them, of unbelief of God and wrong of man." 

That California has the material resources to make her not 
merely one of the first, but the very first, of the states of the 
Union, no one can doubt; but the fostering care of the general 
government, and the exertion of all the energies of our own 
people, will be required to develop those resources and make 
our state what it is capable of becoming. I have dreamed of 
the time when that great highway of commerce around the 
Cape of Good Hope, opened to the world by the Portuguese 
navigators of the fifteenth century, should be abandoned, and 
long caravans of merchant ships, treading the desert ocean 
that lies at our west, should bring to our wharves the mer- 
chandise of China and the Indies, and give to us the profits of 
that vast trade which has built so many of the cities of Europe 
and of Asia; when along the great Atlantic and Pacific rail- 
road, from San Francisco to St. Louis, and from St. Louis to 
the Atlantic seaboard, the transit of this wealth of the world, 
like the turbid stream turned through our miners' sluice-boxes, 
should everywhere deposit gold as it passed. If California 
and the general government shall ever be aroused upon this 
subject, and this great railway — the mightiest in its results of 
any enterprise ever projected by man — shall be completed, a 
revolution will be accomplished in our state, the marvels of 
which will be second only to those that accompanied our first 
settlement of the territory. Our population, no longer stinted 
to a few hundred thousand, will suddenly be counted by mil- 
lions. Every valley will be fat with grain, and the yellow 
harvest will wave on every hillside. The hamlets will rise to 
villages, the villages to towns, and the towns to regal cities. 



PIONEER CELEBRATION SPEECH. 33 

Like the redwoods of our mountains, the masts of the vessels 
of all nations will be a forest in our port, and the white sails 
in the offing shall flock together as white doves when they 
come home to their nests. Then, capital will seek investment 
among us, and enterprise and industry will add wealth to 
wealth. Then will the hidden riches of the mines be explored, 
and larger and more secure investments afford a profit that 
now is hardly dreamed of. Every resource of the state will be 
developed, and California will become the mistress of the Pa- 
cific, rivaling not merely the richest commercial states of our 
own confederacy, but the most powerful maritime nations that 
sit by the shores of the Atlantic. 

Such California once was; such California yet may be. 
You, Pioneers, who meet to-day to celebrate the eighth anni- 
versary of her admission as a state of the Union, — you, and 
those whom you represent, are the founders of this new com- 
monwealth, and on the direction you gave her institutions 
and her enterprise her destiny for good or evil will depend. 

Among the pioneers of other lands and times, who have 
stamped their characters on the institutions they founded and 
become immortal in history, I shall, for your good counsel, 
advert to but two examples, and those, in many respects, the 
opposite of each other. In 1066, the Normans invaded Eng- 
land, and the battle of Hastings broke forever the Saxon and 
Danish power. But years passed, and several monarchs filled 
and vacated the English throne, before these Norman pioneers 
had accomplished their work and molded the nation to their 
will. They were warriors, not reformers. They were greedy 
of power, but impatient of its exercise upon themselves; greedy 
of wealth, but lavish in its expenditure. They were reckless 
alike of their own and the life of others. Turbulent, unruly, 
—equally dangerous to the people whom they subdued, and 
to the princes who led them to conquest. Gallant men, full of 
deeds of knightly courtesy, yet reddening their hands with the 
blood of civil broil, and ever ready to maintain their right 
with their swords. Men of clear intellect and giant will, they 
acknowledged an uncertain allegiance to their king, and only 
bowed their necks to the yoke of God when, at the close of life, 
they deemed it necessary to assume the monastic habit, or to 



34 FREDERICK P. TRACY. 

do penance of their goods for the salvation of their souls. 
From these stern and bloody men, "who came in with the 
Conqueror," or followed in the train of his successors, the 
noblest families of England are proud to derive their descent; 
and even we republicans upon this distant coast, and at this 
late period of time, do not refuse our admiration to these 
Norman pioneers, who, through the mists of the past, loom up 
like giants before us. Yet our admiration of these old war- 
riors, the admiration of the world for them, is not because 
they shed blood, or amassed or squandered wealth, or swore 
fealty to their kings, or broke their oaths in rebellion, or com- 
mitted or abstained from the crimes that were common to their 
age. The Norman pioneers are enrolled in history amongst 
the most illustrious of men because in the dark and troublous 
times in which they lived, in the midst of confusion and blood, 
with strong hands and undaunted hearts they laid deep the 
first foundations of English liberty, and became the fathers of 
that system of common law which, at the end of eight hun- 
dred years, is the protection and the glory of all who speak 
the English tongue. We forget the details of the battle of 
Hastings, and of a hundred other battles that followed it. We 
do not remember what castles were subdued, what cities were 
burned, what districts were wasted with fire and sword, or who 
was killed, or who made the slaughter on the field of blood; 
but all of us who have studied the history of our own freedom 
will well remember how the first charter of liberty was wrung 
from Henry I. at his coronation, and how, with their swords 
in their hands, the stern old barons compelled its confirmation 
and extension by King John, in the field between Windsor 
and Staines, in the form of Magna Charta. True, those char- 
ters of liberty were imperfect in their provisions, but a happy 
facility of interpretation, which in England has generally been 
used in favor of liberty, has, from their date, made them the 
safeguard of the rights of the people, and on them, as the low- 
est foundation-stones, rests the whole glorious superstructure 
of the English common law. The Normans were pioneers 
whose names must be immortal. May you be as fortunate 
when the history of California shall be written. . . . 

I congratulate you, Pioneers of California, on the proud 
position you occupy. 



PIONEER CELEBRATION SPEECH. 35 

11 You are living, you are dwelling, 
In a grand and awful time. 
In an age on ages telling, 
To be living is sublime." 

You are presiding at the birth of a nation; you shape its 
destinies and mold its future according to your own will. 
Y r our works will speak for you in the coming ages. If you 
make California glorious, you will be immortal; if you make 
her base and vile, she will return her shame on your own 
heads. 

It was my lot, in 1848, to witness the Revolution that over- 
turned the throne of France, and drove Louis Philippe into 
exile, and I thought it the fortune of a lifetime to be present 
at the downfall of a great government. But how much more 
is the blood of ambition stirred up by the thought that one is 
present and an actor in the creation of an empire, — of an em- 
pire that for centuries to come is to sit the undisputed mistress 
of these vast seas that spread themselves at our feet! 

Pioneers, the men who come after you will rule only the 
hour in which they live. You are the masters of the ap- 
proaching centuries. They come bending like slaves at your 
feet, and wait to know your pleasure. It is yours, if you will, 
to rill those centuries with the glory of California and your 
own high renown. All that you do in these early, plastic 
times of the state will remain stamped upon her forever, and 
you sit here, masters, while the monuments of your own im- 
mortal fame are being built. 

Pioneers of California, the eyes of the world are fixed upon 
this young state; they are fixed upon you. A great trust is 
committed to your hands by the events that have made you 
pioneers. Take care that you discharge that trust with honor 
to yourselves, and so that California may achieve the glorious 
destiny that is her due. Take care that you so conduct the 
youth of this state, that, centuries hereafter, your descendants 
may say proudly of their ancestors, "He came in with the 
pioneers." 



NEWTON BOOTH. 

Newton Booth was born in Indiana, in 1825. He graduated from 
De Pauw University in 1846, and arrived in California in 1850, engaging 
at once in mercantile business. In 1871 he was elected governor, and 
in 1873 United States Senator for the term March 4, 1875, to March 4, 
1881. He died in Sacramento, July 14, 1892. Senator Booth was a great 
orator. His addresses have been published in one volume by G. P. 
Putnam's Sons. The extracts printed in this volume are good examples 
of his elevated style, nervous energy, and patriotic devotion to his 
country. 

MICHIGAN BLUFF ORATION. 

[Extract from speech delivered at Michigan Bluff, Placer County, 
California, July 4, 1861. The celebration of the nation's birthday was 
held on the top of " Sugar Loaf," an eminence commanding a magnifi- 
cent view of mountain scenery.] 

The place where we have assembled, is eloquent with the 
voice of freedom. Liberty is nature's gospel, and mountains 
are among the grandest of its teachers. Mountains were con- 
secrated by the presence of God when he revealed himself to 
Moses upon Sinai; they were baptized with the blood of our 
Saviour when he died upon Calvary. They are associated 
with the grandest passages of history. In their rocky fast- 
nesses, freedom has ever taken refuge in her weakness, until 
she could grow strong enough to battle for her rights upon the 
plains. To-day, before these great altars nature has built to 
liberty, in this favored region that has never known the pres- 
ence of a king or footprint of a slave, we have gathered to- 
gether, without one pulse of trembling for our country's fate, 
without one thrill of fear for its destiny, with no foreboding of 
eventual danger from lurking lightnings in gathering clouds; 
we are here to celebrate a nation's birthday, not to contem- 
plate its grave! 

But to-day, this anniversary, so dear to our personal recol- 
lections, so sacred by national associations, so hallowed in all 

36 



MICHIGAN BLUFF ORATION. 37 

history, comes to us under circumstances of more deep and 
portentous interest than ever before. 

We have met together in peace. Nature smiles upon us. 
We are in the midst of our summer harvest. The year is 
plentiful. Our gardens are blooming, our orchards and vine- 
yards bending with ripening fruit. Our state is growing in 
population and wealth. We are still laying bare the golden 
treasures of the mountains, and developing the agricultural 
riches of the plains — but our hearts are ill at ease. Again 
"our brethren are in the field. Every breeze that sweeps from 
the East brings to our ears the clash of resounding arms." 
Armies are mustering, such as the continent has never known 
before, — not now to repel foreign invasion, nor carry the terrors 
of the republic into unfriendly lands; but sons of the sires who 
fought at Bunker Hill and Yorktown, at Moultrie and Sara- 
toga, have met in deadly conflict over the torn and bloody 
garments of the nation's glory, around the tomb of Washing- 
ton. 



38 NEWTON BOOTH. 



DEBIT AND CREDIT OF THE WAR. 

[Extract from speech delivered at Sacramento, August 14, 1862.] 

Where in all history do you find a heroism surpassing that 
of Springfield, of Pea Ridge, of Donelson, of Shiloh, of Fair 
Oaks, and the six days' fighting before Richmond? That hero- 
ism, defying wounds and death, pouring out its life-blood freely 
— freely as I give these words unto the open air, — was the 
inspiration of country. Two ideas there are which, above all 
others, elevate and dignify a race, — the idea of God and of 
country. How imperishable is the idea of country! How 
does it live within and ennoble the heart in spite of persecu- 
tions and trials, and difficulties and dangers! After two thou- 
sand years of wandering, it makes the Jew a sharer in the 
glory of the prophets, the lawgivers, the warriors, and poets 
who lived in the morning of time. How does it toughen every 
fiber of an Englishman's frame, and imbue the spirit of the 
Frenchman with Napoleonic enthusiasm! How does the Ger- 
man carry with him even the "old house furniture" of the 
Rhine, surround himself with the sweet and tender associa- 
tions of " fatherland," and wheresoever he may be, the great 
names of German history shine like stars in the heaven above 
him. And the Irishman, though the political existence of his 
country is merged in a kingdom whose rule he may abhor, yet 
still do the chords of his heart vibrate responsive to the tones 
of the harp of Erin, and the lowly shamrock is dearer to his 
soul than the fame-crowning laurel, the love-breathing myrtle, 
or storm-daring pine. What is our country? Not alone the 
land and the sea, the lakes and rivers, and valleys and moun- 
tains; not alone the people, their customs and laws; not 
alone the memories of the past, the hopes of the future: it is 
something more than all these combined. It is a divine ab- 
straction. You cannot tell what it is; but let its flag rustle 
above your head, you feel its living presence in your hearts. 
They tell us that our country must die; that the sun and the 



DEBIT AND CREDIT OF THE WAR. 39 

stars will look down upon the great republic no more; that 
already the black eagles of despotism are gathering in our 
political sky; that, even now, kings and emperors are casting 
lots for the garments of our national glory. It shall not be! 
Not yet, not yet, shall the nations lay the bleeding corpse of 
our country in the tomb. If they could, angels would roll 
the stone from the mouth of the sepulcher. It would burst 
the casements of the grave and come forth a living presence, 
"redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled." Not yet, not yet, 
shall the republic die! The heavens are not darkened, the 
stones are not rent! It shall live — it shall live, the incarna- 
tion of freedom; it shall live, the embodiment of the power and 
majesty of the people. Baptized anew, it shall stand a thou- 
sand years to come, the Colossus of the nations, — its feet upon 
the continents, its scepter over the seas, its forehead among 
the stars! 



40 NEWTON BOOTH. 



ON LABOR. 

[Extract from speech delivered at Sacramento, May 10, 1871. J 

It is strange that in a country where there are hundreds of 
millions of acres of unsettled land, in an age when mechani- 
cal inventions have tenfold increased the power of production, 
daily bread and comfortable homes should not be easily within 
the reach of all. And if it be true now, as is evidenced by the 
frenzied protests of "strikes," and the wailing cry of distress 
that goes up from cities over a speculative advance in coal, 
what will be the condition of affairs when our vacant leagues 
of territory shall swarm with teeming population? Would 
you behold the saddest spectacle of this age? See it in the 
strong man seeking in vain for a place to earn his daily bread 
by daily toil. Would you discover the danger that threatens 
social order? Find it in the boys of our cities growing up in 
voluntary or enforced idleness, to graduate into pensioners or 
outlaws. Whoever will look open-eyed into the future will 
see that the "labor question"; the question of directing the 
rising generation into channels of useful employment; the 
question of the equitable distribution of the burdens and re- 
wards of labor, so that the drones shall not live upon the 
workers, and honest industry may be certain of its reward; 
the question of making labor in fact, what we call it in speech, 
honorable, — not only honorable, but honored, — is the social 
problem, far more important than political questions, to which 
our age should address itself. It must be intelligently solved, 
or like the blind Samson it will bring the temple down upon 
our heads. 



HON. STEPHEN M. WHITE. 

Stephen Mallory White was born in San Francisco, in 1853. He 
was elected to the United States Senate in 1893, served six years, and 
died at Los Angeles, February 21, 1901. He had the rare gift of elo- 
quence. His public addresses would fill several volumes. The editor 
has selected a brief address, for the reason that arrangements have 
been made to print a volume of the speeches of Senator White. This 
virile tribute to Senator Stanford, however, is a good example of the 
dignity, virility, and color of his orations. 

EULOGY ON SENATOR STANFORD. 

[Delivered before the United States Senate on the death of Senator 
Leland Stanford, which occurred at Palo Alto, California, June 20, 
1893.] 

Mr. President, — Another member of this body has passed 
from among us, his term of office not accomplished. It is 
meet that we, who have been his associates, should record our 
sorrow and pay fitting tribute of respect to his memory. I 
shall not enter upon an examination of the life and services of 
the late Leland Stanford. I am apprised that other Senators, 
long his companions here and elsewhere, desire to signalize 
their regard by a review of his career. It may not be amiss, 
however, for me to contribute a brief expression. 

Senator Stanford was thoroughly identified with the inter- 
ests of California. His relations to that state and to her 
progress will be fully detailed by my able colleague and 
others who are to follow me. He was not only twice elected 
to the Senate of the United States by the California legisla- 
ture, but he was also chosen by the people to the high station 
of governor. He was thus honored at a time when it was 
necessary that strong and wise counsel should prevail, and the 
history of our commonwealth discloses that Governor Stan- 
ford was not only loyal, but that his policy was such as to 
win the applause of all well-disposed men, regardless of party 
affiliation. He had faith in the American Union, and con- 

41 



42 HON. STEPHEN M. WHITE. 

ducted his administration in accordance with his belief. In 
the pursuit of the objects which he desired to attain, Senator 
Stanford was diligent, painstaking, and unremitting. 

His successes were due, I think, largely to his determina- 
tion to win the object of his aspiration. His firmness did not 
beget arrogance, and the possession of wealth did not impair 
in the slightest degree his kindly characteristics. The leading 
part which he took in constructing a transcontinental railroad 
system and in carrying on the vast interests connected with 
railroad corporations on the Pacific Coast is fully known and 
needs no elaboration or extended presentation. The crowning 
effort of his life — strikingly at variance with the conduct of the 
average millionaire — was the contribution of his means to the 
cause of education. While many doubted his ability, as they 
doubted the ability of any individual, to sustain the stupen- 
dous burden which he undertook at Palo Alto, matters have 
so progressed as to justify the conclusion that he and his 
estimable wife did not overestimate their capabilities. This 
bestowal of his fortune demonstrated Mr. Stanford's philan- 
thropy. 

The plan which he outlined for the practical teaching of the 
youth of his country proved that he appreciated the necessi- 
ties of his fellows. Owing to the impossibility of overcoming 
the intervening distance, I was the only representative of the 
Senate at his interment. While participating in the impres- 
sive ceremonies which there took place, I soon observed, that, 
although there were no invitations issued, there were in at- 
tendance a vast number of the older citizens of California, — a 
remarkable representation of the pioneer element. Many of 
those who had passed through the storms of more than one 
third of a century, and who had participated in the active con- 
tentions of early California life, stood by the bier with moist- 
ened eye. Some of them had differed from Senator Stanford 
in politics, and some had opposed him in other respects, but 
all were emphatic that he was a man whose heart was no less 
reliable than his brain. If the expressions of these most com- 
petent witnesses could have been perpetuated, they would 
have constituted a far more eloquent tribute to his memory 
than anything which will be uttered in this chamber. He 



EULOGY ON SENATOR STANFORD. 43 

was laid to rest in that beautiful principality, bewildering in 
its charms, which he had selected for his home. 

Senator Stanford was not without his trials. The loss of the 
son whose name the university carries was a blow that a less 
determined organization would have failed to resist; and while 
in this chamber those who were associated with him utter 
words of regretful sentiment, let it not be forgotten that his 
companion and truest friend, the partner of his cares and his 
joys, still survives; that upon her shoulders is cast the burden 
of carrying out the great projects which she and her husband 
designed, and to which they consecrated their later years. 
That she has the power, and that she will realize their antici- 
pations, no one who is acquainted with her or at all familiar 
with her attainments for a moment doubts. I know that the 
sincere and undivided condolence of this chamber goes out to 
her, and she can rest in assured possession of the sympathy 
and good will of her countrymen. 

Senator Stanford's death was not altogether unexpected. 
His once robust constitution yielded to the pressure of busi- 
ness and time. His transition to another world is but an ad- 
ditional notice to us all, suggesting the inevitable. 

1 ' As the amber of the clouds 
Changes into silver gray, 
So the light of every life 
Fades at last from earth away." 



JOSEPH LECONTE. 

Dr. Le Conte had great power as a public speaker, — not great voice, 
but a personality that held the people. Few men have had greater power 
as a platform speaker. This is all the more remarkable, for his speeches 
were frequently extracts from manuscripts that he had prepared for 
publication. 

THE EFFECT OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 
ON EDUCATION. 

[The address from which this extract is made was delivered before 
the National Educational Association at Denver, Colorado, was printed 
in the Educational Review, and was delivered on January 4, 1897, before 
the California State Teachers' Association.] 

Like all great truths, the idea of evolution has been held 
in a vague way, even from the earliest dawn of thought. But 
only very recently do we observe any attempt to apply it to 
life. We find the explanation of this in the profound differ- 
ence between the old philosophy and modern science in their 
respective attitudes toward truth. To the old thinkers, pure 
thought and gross matter, the ideal and the real, belonged to 
two different worlds. They never dreamed of bringing down 
their noble thoughts to the practical concerns of life, — to apply 
them to social organization, or politics, or religion. These 
glorious ideas were for the delectation of thinkers only. These 
daughters of the intellect were too pure and holy to be married 
to the grossly practical. They were vestal virgins about the 
sacred altar of truth; beautiful exceedingly, but forever barren. 
To modern science, on the contrary, every truth has, and must 
have, its practical application. The tree of knowledge must 
bear appropriate fruit for the material benefit of humanity. 
Evolution is now, therefore, applied to practical life, because 
it has passed from the domain of vague philosophic specula- 
tion into that of definite scientific knowledge. This change 
has not taken place all at once, but only by the successive 

44 



EVOLUTION AND EDUCATION. 45 

labors of many men, each contributing his own characteristic 
part. It was the part of Lamarck to awaken scientific atten- 
tion and deeply stir the scientific mind. It was the part of 
Darwin to convince the scientific mind of the truth of the evo- 
lution of the organic kingdom. It was the part of Spencer to 
extend the law of evolution to embrace every department of 
nature, and thus to make it applicable to society, to religion, 
and to education. It was the part of Huxley to fight the bat- 
tles of evolution and to conquer its acceptance by the intelli- 
gent but unscientific public. It was, and is, the part of Ameri- 
can evolutionists to complete the evidence from palaeontology, 
where it was weakest, and also — for we are less hampered by 
tradition here than elsewhere — to apply it fearlessly, yet I 
hope reverently, to religious and social thought. 

The final effect has been to revolutionize our whole view of 
nature and of man; to change the whole attitude of the mind 
toward truth, and thus to modify deeply our philosophy in 
every department, and therefore, also, to modify profoundly 
our theory and methods of education. 

There are two opposite philosophies of life which have hith- 
erto dominated the world of thought, aye, and of conduct too. 
According to the one, our nature is essentially dual, — i.e., 
animal and spiritual, — without cordial, with even inimical, 
relation between. The pure spiritual nature is imprisoned 
here on earth for a brief space, in an impure material body, 
and dominated by it, and the higher spiritual nature becomes 
purer, nobler, freer, just in proportion as it despises, tramples 
under foot, and extirpates the animal nature. This is the 
ascetic philosophy of life. According to the other, our nature 
is one. Man is simply a higher kind of animal. His pleasures 
may, indeed, be higher, more refined, than those of other ani- 
mals, but still they are all on the same plane, — the animal. 
Pleasure, enjoyment, — the more refined, the better, of course, — 
is the only end of human, as of animal, life. Virtue is only a 
more refined kind of selfishness. This is the hedonistic phi- 
losophy of life. Now, evolution completely combines and 
reconciles these two mutually excluding opposites, both as to 
the nature of man and as to the philosophy of life, and is 
therefore more rational than either. 



GENERAL W. H. L. BARNES. 

General W. H. L. Barnes was born at West Point, New York, in 
1836, and died in San Francisco in 1902. He was educated at Yale. 
After a brief partnership in law with Joseph Choate in New York, he 
entered the army and served on the staff of General Fitz-John Porter. 
In 1863 he resigned, and came to California and formed a partnership 
with Eugene Casserly. During his remarkable career as a lawyer he 
figured in many notable cases. His fame, however, will rest on his gift 
as a public speaker. No words of the editor can add to the beautiful 
tribute to General Barnes by Hon. Samuel M. Shortridge, published in 
this volume. 

SPEECH AT MUSIC-STAND DEDICATION. 

[Delivered at dedication of the music-stand presented by Claus 
Spreckels, at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.] 

My Fellow-Citizens, — This immense concourse demon- 
strates the deep interest which the people whom I have the 
distinguished honor to represent to-day take in the completion 
and dedication of this architectural triumph of the Reid 
Brothers, rendered possible through the generosity of Mr. 
Claus Spreckels, who may be justly denominated the foremost 
living citizen of California. For himself and for the state, his 
has been a most fortunate career, — not so fortunate, perhaps, 
as it is rather the natural result of rare executive ability and 
absolute integrity in affairs, of indomitable force of will in the 
undertaking and triumphant completion of commercial en- 
terprises which have benefited the people far more than they 
have enriched him. The gigantic industries which have been 
developed by this good citizen have for many years furnished 
homes and maintenance to more human beings than those of 
any other individual, or indeed of any aggregation of capital, 
in this state. 

That to-day has been selected to devote this temple of music 
to the perpetual use of the people is especially felicitous. It 
connects it with an historical epoch in the life of the common- 

46 



MUSIC-STAND DEDICATION SPEECH. 47 

wealth, which marks its semi-centennial with the pride of an 
exultant population, rejoicing in the review of a past munifi- 
cent in progress, and illuminated by the prophecy of acquisi- 
tions in wealth and civic power which bewilder contempla- 
tion, and stretching from the Arctic circle to the equator. Well 
may the sons of California exult "with joy unspeakable and 
full of glory." 

Fifty years have passed since the star of California first ap- 
peared in the national constellation, yet the flight of all its 
suns contains no more illustrious sign than hers. It is indeed 
difficult to realize the progression of these five decades, — of 
these two generations of men. Then the indigenous popula- 
tion was sparse, rude, and pastoral. All modes were primi- 
tive, and the social system, such as it was, wholly patriarchal. 
Our language and our customs were strange and foreign. 
Communication with the outside world was tedious and infre- 
quent, and to the pioneers of modern civilization the deserts 
were more deadly than the perils of the ocean. The Pacific 
shore, the thunder of whose breakers comes murmuring to our 
ears, was the limit of the wildest dream of American sov- 
ereignty, and American commerce halted and retired from 
competition with other nations for the trade of the Orient. 
There was no prophecy in those sunburned plains, in those 
long months of drought and torrid heat, of that marvelous 
fecundity of soil which has made California one of the world's 
chief granaries, while fruits of all the zones are here produced 
and are flushing the markets of civilization. Her population 
is no longer immigrant. The pioneer still holds his place in 
our admiring affections, but the scepter is in the hands of the 
Native Son. Science and art are well established in technic 
schools and universities, whose scholarship mounts as high 
and descends as deep as that of the best of the nations, and 
whose eager native-born students are counted by thousands. 

The citizen learns daily of all the current events of the 
round world at the moment of their occurrence. Travel is a 
luxury, whether by land or sea. The spot where we are now 
assembled was once a dreary desert, drawn, through centuries, 
by northwest trade winds, from the inexhaustible sands of the 
ocean, hopeless of verdure and forbidding in every aspect. 



48 GENERAL BARNES. 

To-day the desert is, as by magic, transformed into one of the 
noblest of American parks, whose forest, lawns, and waters 
give pure enjoyment to all classes and conditions of mankind, 
— a park wisely contrived, admirably administered, and pro- 
phetic of still greater results. Those who designed it builded 
better than they knew. Laws are made and taxes are levied, 
for the most part, to protect one half of the world's inhabi- 
tants from the plundering propensities of the other half, but 
the law that established this place, where the people " shall 
walk abroad and recreate themselves," is the only law that 
does not bear hard on somebody, and the taxes levied to sup- 
port and improve it are almost the only ones paid without 
murmur, and which give a full return in happiness to the 
young and the old, to the rich and the poor, the good and the 
bad, to the white Saxon and Latin and the shaded Asiatic, to 
the Sabbath-breaker and the Sabbath-keeper alike. The great 
park, like a tender mother, opens its arms and bares its bosom 
to all the children of men, and teaches the lesson of a true 
democracy. 

So are we all here to-day to welcome and receive a gift to all 
the people. Not to the city of San Francisco, not to the com- 
missioners of the park, but to us, is given this splendid struc- 
ture. Apart from the purpose to which it will be devoted, it 
is a noble work. It is an architectural poem set to the music 
of an inspired imagination. So far as I know, it has no pro- 
totype. It is original in conception and execution. This lofty 
center, towering in massive strength above the orchestral vault, 
together with its supporting colonnades, is novel in design 
and detail, and is the luxury of architectural grace. Its ma- 
terial is of Colusa sandstone, in color as soft and gray as the 
ages through which, we trust, it will endure. Its only and 
unselfish purpose is the constant education of the people in the 
purest and most refining of all the arts; that art, without 
which childhood would lose its delight and old age its conso- 
lation; that art, which, while we are under its spell, kills all 
care, and puts grief to sleep; that art, which interprets every 
human passion and emotion, which accompanies us by day 
and by night, rouses the patriot heart and helps to keep it in 
step with the music of the Union. In this temple, melodies 



MUSIC-STAND DEDICATION SPEECH. 49 

composed by the great masters of harmony shall educate and 
refine us and our descendants. Here, national hymns shall 
speak in orchestral volume for the people in their hours of 
triumph or rouse their declining courage in those of defeat. 
Here shall be rendered the music of the future. Here shall 
gather yet unborn millions, drinking from their cradles to 
their graves the harmonies of songs and marches, daily re- 
newed from generation to generation as the sun renews its 
refulgent beams, and free as the winds of the ocean, that shall 
breathe upon these trees in their age and decrepitude as now 
in their early growth. 

He who gave this structure to the people has builded for 
himself an enduring monument. The rich and the great of 
earth may rest, after the battle is over, in stately tombs which 
make the sad glory of the cities of the dead, — cities where 
posterity must go to behold the record of human life or human 
pride fighting the onset of human mortality. From the tombs 
of Nippon and Nineveh, from Egyptian Pyramids, from every 
carved image and monumental pile the world over, from 
shrines that tell where saints have suffered, and where the light 
of royalty has risen in palaces and set in sarcophagus and 
cenotaph; from the grave of Adam to the latest monument 
that from Lone Mountain overlooks the sea, — all add their 
testimony to the irresistible desire of man to live, though he 
be dead. 

The proudest memorial to the memory of the bestower of 
this gift will not be sought in some God's acre. It will rather 
remain in this world of light and beauty. Around it shall 
assemble living people, men, women, and children, not in 
affliction, but in the happiest of the sunny hours of life, in 
holiday and Sabbath rest, prepared, with kindly thoughts and 
emotions, to enjoy the harmonies that shall be interpreted to 
them by the masters of the orchestral instruments of this age 
and those of ages to come. And as the volume of population 
grows and spreads homes of beauty and refinement over the 
hills that overlook this spot, their proud denizens, as well as 
the humble pilgrims from the crowded urban streets, will re- 
member with gratitude this stately tribute to musical art 
given by our fellow-citizen and friend, Claus Spreckels. 



50 GENERAL BARNES. 



THE REDWOODS. 

[Delivered at a midsummer "jinks" of the Bohemian Club of San 
Francisco.] 

The possessor of a name more ancient than the crusaders 
will show you, in the land of his birth, ancestral trees that 
surround his lordly domain, and proudly exhibit some gnarled 
and ugly oak, which by him is associated with some distant 
event in his own family, or with the history of the hoary races 
of the brave nation of which he forms a part. Here his an- 
cestors builded a castle before the Middle Ages, with defensive 
moat and parapet, with keep and dungeon, all long since 
fallen into ruin, — melted in the unperceived decay of ages, or 
bruised into it by the vigor of the battering-ram of some gal- 
lant and feudal company. 

He will say to you, "All these are mine. They are part of 
my race, and my race is of them." Bat what are all his pos- 
sessions — castle, moat, dungeon, or gnarled oak — beside the 
ancient brotherhood of venerable trees to which we have been 
admitted, and whose stately silence we have been permitted to 
break? Our trees were old before the Roman invaded Britain; 
old before the Saxon worshiped Hengist and Horsa; old before 
the vikings sailed the northern seas. For ages piled upon ages, 
even before letters were known, before even history commenced 
to make its record of the doings of nations and races, these 
trees and their ancestors builded and renewed their leafy castles. 

The groupings of the present monarchs of the forest show 
that these are but the descendants of still more ancient 
growths; were once nothing but saplings that sprung from the 
superabundant life of some giant trunk long since vanished, 
and whose grave is sentineled by his stalwart children. How 
shall we measure the vigor and force which they possess? 
How shall we comprehend by what method the stately body, 
ever rising in monumental force toward the skies, draws its 
being from the deep and busy fingers of the roots, and from 
them lifts the alchemized earth and water higher and still 



THE REDWOODS. 51 

higher, until both feed and nourish the smallest leaf and spear- 
point of the topmost shaft, — spear-point that, in its turn, is des- 
tined in some future age to become a stalwart trunk, crowding 
with its growth ever upward and onward towards the stars? 

Who shall tell how, through the eons of the long ago, these 
trees have been the silent and majestic watchers of the night 
and dawn and day of the world's life? How shall we conjec- 
ture how long they have been welcoming the sun in his rising, 
and have caught his last and lingering caress as he has dis- 
appeared in the glory of the evening sky? How long have 
they been the vigil keepers of the night, and watched the 
silent constellations sailing through the immensity of space? 
Who shall tell us if these trees caught, perhaps, the earliest 
song of the stars of the morning, while above and beyond them, 
unnumbered comet and meteor have shone and vanished? 

How came these trees to this continent? Have they ever 
lived and burgeoned in some other happy land? or are they 
the fruit of one sole and giant extravagance of nature, exult- 
ing in the uppermost luxury of force, and reveling in the very 
fullness of all power? Shall man solve the mystery? Nature 
is full of lessons yet to be learned, but nowhere in air or earth 
or water is there more awe-inspiring strangeness than in these 
great growths whose wonder we have studied, but with study 
fruitless of revelation. 

To me, during the days we spent in the forest, the contem- 
plation of the redwoods was never for a moment wearisome. 
I have looked up along their marvelous length in the early 
morning, when the frondent and topmost spear caught the 
first glimpse of the sun's glory, and I have seen his afternoon 
rays flashing and glinting on emerald bough and purple trunk, 
and at last losing themselves in the depths of a solemn and 
impenetrable shade. I have lain at night on the dry earth 
and looked up at the closing vista of the dark boughs fretting 
the moonlight and shutting out the sparkle of the stars, until 
their weird shapes seemed summited in their very pathway; 
and I saw, when Pan killed Care upon the mountain side that 
overhung the grove, such an illumination of the glory of the 
trees in purple and crimson and scarlet as shall forever make 
the ablest effort of the scenic artist stale, tawdry, unendurable. 



52 GENERAL BARNES. 



"THE SPIRIT OF THE PHONOGRAPH." 

[Delivered extemporaneously.] 

I am the spirit of the Phonograph. Nothing brought to me 
escapes my grasp. The babble of the child, the note of the 
singer, the voice of the orator, the cry of the new-born babe, 
the music of the masters interpreted by harmonious orches- 
tras, all come to me and rest in my charge and ward. The 
thunder of cannon does not affright me, nor the whispered 
word of love lose its record. I speak all languages known to 
mankind. I can reproduce the unsyllabled cries of the ani- 
mal, and the songs of the feathered tribe. Nor does my mem- 
ory fail me. To man come age and weakness; come fading 
and still fading impressions of earlier days, — of loved forms 
and faces, of dear voices whispering love's tenderest promises, 
— fading and still fading until all are forgotten, and from pal- 
sied hands are dropped treasures once hugged to the heart's 
core. To me there comes no weakness or decrepitude. I am 
memory's eternal minister. In me the vanished live again. 
" I am the resurrection and the life." He who breathes to me 
his thoughts, his wishes, his emotions, or his passions, though 
he were dead, yet shall he live. 






SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

Samuel Morgan Shortridge was born August 3, 1861, at Mount 
Pleasant, Henry County, Iowa ; was educated in the public schools, 
graduating from the high school at San Jose, and taught school for four 
years. He has served the public as teacher ; Presidential elector in 1888, 
and Presidential elector-at-large in 1900. His life has been character- 
ized by work, — work in the schoolroom, in the mines, in his law office, 
and in the courts. Mr. Shortridge has delivered many speeches, — on 
political, educational, and economic questions; memorial addresses, 
Fourth of July orations ; on Masonic occasions ; speeches on Italy, Scot- 
land, Mexico, etc. , on " Western Diplomacy," on William McKinley, 
etc. Mr. Shortridge represents the highest type of oratory. His style 
is full of dignity and repose. He understands the art of the actor, but 
never poses nor uses the twists of voice or action to hold the attention 
of his hearers. The chief characteristics of his style are elevation of 
thought, humanizing patriotism, and vigorous expression. 

MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS. 

[An oration delivered in San Francisco, May 30, 1901.] 

This day is consecrate to the nation's dead and living sol- 
diers. Uncovered beside the hallowed graves of those who 
fought and fell in the sacred cause of Union and Liberty, a 
people of brave men and loyal women stand with hearts op- 
pressed with gratitude, and listen to the story of their heroes' 
deeds and death. We come in thankfulness — matron and 
maid, sire and lad — to scatter fragrant flowers on honored 
dust, and for the martyrs who sleep unknown but not unwept. 
We come to grasp the hands of the surviving heroes who re- 
sponded to their country's cry of anguish when the temple of 
liberty was assailed and her sacred altars desecrated; who en- 
dured the long, weary march, the cruel deprivations of the 
camp, the fevered heat of noon and the chilling cold of night; 
who stormed the frowning heights where treason was in- 
trenched, and met upon an hundred fields the brave but mis- 
guided hosts that in madness and folly sought to destroy the 
edifice dedicated with the prayers and consecrated by the valor 

53 



54 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

and blood of the patriot fathers; who carried the tattered but 
dear flag of their country through fire and flood and "val- 
ley and shadow of death," and paused not until it waved vic- 
torious in every state and respected on every sea. We come to 
shed proud and happy tears for those who gladly gave up all 
for their imperiled country, in order to preserve the precious 
fruits of the Revolutionary struggle and to keep the flag of 
Washington triumphant in the sky. We come to welcome 
and to dower with our love the loyal and self-sacrificing men 
who left the plow, the forge, the desk, to rescue from the jaws 
of death the greatest, best, and truest republic that ever blessed 
the earth. 

A common thought pervades all hearts. This is not a day 
for vainglorious boasting, but for gratitude and praise. We 
come in sorrow, not in anger, and our hearts are filled with 
sadness, not revenge. We are not here to upbraid, to accuse, 
to exult over the defeat of brethren and brave men, to de- 
nounce what is no more, to open wounds by the healing touch 
of time made whole. No, no; Heaven forbid that this sacred 
day should stir our hearts to other than feelings of forgiveness, 
of gratitude, of pride, and of love. Rather let it be said we 
come to — 

" Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain." 

For those who died to save the republic, I have tears and 
eulogy; for those who died to overthrow it, I have tears and 
silence. 

Not as citizens of a torn and discordant Union, not as 
blinded partisans, but as children of a common and reunited 
country, we gather to give expression of our gratitude to those 
who by their sacrifices and their martyrdom made this land 
the home of freedom, and the banner of the stars the symbol 
of one people, one constitution, and one destiny. 

We are gathered here — the multitude has put on a suit of 
woe and stands beside the graves where heroes sleep — not to 
revive bitter memories, not to cause heartaches or awaken ani- 
mosities, dead, let us fervently hope, forever, but for a better, 
worthier, and more patriotic purpose : to teach the rising- 
generation that the dead fell not in vain; to impress upon 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS. 55 

their youthful hearts that America does not forget the travail 
through which, by the inscrutable wisdom of Heaven, she has 
passed, that she loves her loyal sons and daughters with more 
than Cornelian affection, and treasures them now, and will 
treasure them forever, as her unfading glory. 

And so, my countrymen, we come to sorrow and to rejoice, — 
to sorrow over the loved and lost, to rejoice over their mag- 
nificent achievements and a Union saved and disenthralled by 
their devotion. As in the Roman days the wives and mothers 
went out upon the Appian Way to meet the home-returning 
legions, — some to fall upon the bosoms of husbands, fathers, or 
sons and shed tears of joy, and some to search in vain for dear 
ones amid the broken, decimated ranks, but wept not, because 
they had died bravely in defense of Rome, her altars, and her 
fires, — so we welcome to-day the scarred and wounded, the 
remnant of hard-fought fields; we stretch forth our arms to 
embrace them; we cover them with garlands emblematic of 
our love, and scatter flowers in their way to tread upon. 

But for the ones who answer not, who sleep the dreamless 
sleep of death, who died with the face of mother near their 
hearts, the name of country on their lips, what shall we say? 
They cannot hear our words nor see the offering of our hands; 
they are past all battles, all marches, all victories, all defeats; 
"on Fame's eternal camping-ground their silent tents are 
spread," and the troubled drum disturbs their sleep no 
more. And yet, sacred shades of the unreplying dead, we 
feel your presence now. We hear the shot of Sumter that 
wakened all the land; we see you coming down from the 
mountains, up from the plains, and marching away to battle, 
leaving behind, alas! forever, faithful wife, loving children, 
aged mother, venerable father; we see you by the camp-fires 
dimly burning; we see you in the cannon-smoke and hurri- 
cane of war; we hear the command to charge, which you obey, 
how bravely, with bosom bared and parched and thirsty lips; 
we see you wounded and bleeding; we see you in the hospitals 
of fever and pain; we see you again with your regiment, with 
courage undaunted, your love for home and flag intensified; 
we see your comrades fall around you like flowers of spring 
cut down; we see you captured and hurried away; we see you 



56 SAMUEL M. SHOKTRIDGE. 

wasting in awful dungeons, languishing in prison-pens; we 
catch the faint accent of your tongues as you murmur a 
prayer for your country and for the loved ones that come to 
you in your dreams; we see you encounter death in the gaunt 
and hideous form of starvation and quail not; we see you die! 
Die for what? Die for whom? Die for Union and Liberty. 
Die for us and generations yet to be. 

Dead and living soldiers of the Grand Army of the Repub- 
lic, you, you engaged in the holiest cause that ever received 
the approving smile of Heaven; you preserved the Union, 
" one and inseparable," with all its blessed memories, with all 
its priceless benefits, with all its exalted and encouraging 
hopes. You carried the banner of your country, full high ad- 
vanced through the darkest hour and wildest storm that ever 
overwhelmed a nation, until the returning and radiant morn 
of victory and peace blessed and hallowed it. Moved by the 
loftiest purposes, inspired by the sublimest sentiments, faith- 
ful unto death, you went forth, not to subjugate, not to 
enslave, not to tear down, but to rescue, to uplift, and to make 
free. In the name of the redeemed and rededicated nation; in 
the name of that liberty for which Warren died and to pre- 
serve which Lincoln gave the full measure of his devotion; in 
the name of all we are and hope to be, — the glorious present 
and the grander future, — we bow to-day and pay you the poor 
tribute of our love and tears. 

All hail to the saviors of this beloved land ! Humbly we lay 
our offerings on the dead. Reverently we invoke the blessing 
of Almighty God on the declining years of the living. Long 
may their eyes be gladdened by the flag they saved; long may 
their hearts be consoled by the assurance that, while the 
monuments reared to haughty pride and selfish ambition sink 
beneath the despoiling hand of time, the soldier's humble 
grave, though unadorned by costly urn or marble shaft, will 
forever be his country's hallowed ground, where future patriots 
shall come to rekindle the fires of their devotion and to renew 
and realfirm their allegiance to the land by his sacrifices made 
truly, grandly free. 

And so we bow before the heroes who saved our country; we 
stand uncovered beside the graves of the martyrs who died in 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS. 57 

her sacred cause. Peace and honor to the living; honor and 
peace to the dead. 

The Civil War, of the sad ravages and awful agony of which 
we are this day reminded, was the inevitable result of the 
"irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces," 
— between freedom and slavery. 

Removed sufficiently from those troubled days to look at 
facts calmly and to speak of them without anger, let us be 
just, let us be truthful. The courts had exalted slavery, had 
hedged it round by law, had nationalized it. In that most 
august tribunal — in that high place immortalized by the 
transcendent greatness of a Marshall and the unfathomed 
learning of a Story, which had witnessed the marvelous dis- 
plays of Pinkney, Webster, and Choate — in the Supreme Court 
of the United States slavery had met and vanquished freedom. 
The Dred Scott decision gave up this nation to bondage, and 
made it possible, under the law, to sell wives and babes in 
Faneuil Hall and to call the roll of slaves on the sacred spot 
where Warren fell! Thenceforth Congress could not interfere 
with slavery: states were powerless to prevent it. And thus 
it came to pass that in the land of Washington, Franklin, and 
Wayne, in the land of Adams, Henry, and Sherman, in the 
land whose sons had died for liberty on a hundred fields — 
who had stormed the walls of Quebec and left their blood on 
the snow at Valley Forge — -in this our beloved land — in this 
republic! — slavery was king. The time to gather the bitter 
fruit of the accursed upas tree planted at Jamestown in 1620 
was near at hand. 

An awful storm, pregnant with death and woe, was gather- 
ing, and the people sought a leader. They were sore distressed 
with a multitude of counsel, and they cried: — 

" God give us men ! A time like this demands 
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands ; 

Men whom the lust of office does not kill ; 
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy ; 

Men who possess opinions and a will ; 
Men who have honor ; men who will not lie : 

Men who can stand before a demagogue, 
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking ; 



58 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog, 

In public duty and in private thinking ! 

For while the tricksters, with their thumb-worn creeds, 
Their large professions, and their little deeds, 

Mingle in selfish strife, lo ! Freedom weeps ! 

Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps ! " 

In the midst of mingled doubts and fears, when weak and 
timid politicians masquerading under the name of statesmen 
hesitated to grapple with the monstrous evil that threatened 
to advance upon and overwhelm the last remaining bulwarks 
of freedom, when the right and true path was wellnigh lost 
sight of, and lovers of liberty were ranged under different ban- 
ners, waiting for a Moses who should lead them out of Egyp- 
tian bondage, the Great Captain came. He came, and thence- 
forth all seemed clear. Simple in speech, plain in manner, 
straightforward in action, tender as a child, bold as a lion, 
fearless as a hero, at once courageous and humble, lofty and 
lowly, he came to speak and to act. Born of Southern par- 
ents who had witnessed the depressing and blighting effects of 
slavery, and reared in the broad prairies of the West, whose 
very winds sang liberty, he realized the curse of bondage and 
the blessing of freedom. From the unfelled forest, from the 
log cabin and the country store, from humble forum and ob- 
scure dwelling, from out the ranks of the people, the leader 
came. He came, and statesmen bowed before him; he spoke, 
and a nation hearkened to his counsel. Devoted to truth and 
the right, opposed to falsehood and the wrong, scorning the 
tricks and subterfuges of the self-seeking, and abhorring with 
his whole heart and soul the mean and base, loving his coun- 
try with a devotion that made him forgetful of all else save 
the preservation of the Union, the incomparable leader rose. 
In judicial tribunal and halls of state, in capital and village, 
in mansion and log cabin, in crowded cities, and out on the 
boundless prairies of the West, men listened to his words, and 
saw, as they had never seen before, the darkness, the light, 
and the path, — the wrong, the right, and the remedy. "You 
must be either all slave or all free." These were his prophetic 
words. Who was this man that came unheralded out of the 
West? Who was this man that rose above the great states- 






MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS. 59 

men of his day — who was as earnest as Phillips, as gifted as 
Baker, who was more profound than Seward, more learned 
than Chase, more logical than Douglas, more eloquent than 
Everett? Who was he that combined in one soul the sim- 
plicity of a child, the wisdom of a sage, and the foresight of a 
prophet? Need I utter his sacred name? Wheresoever among 
men there is a love for disinterested patriotism and sublime at- 
tachment to duty, wheresoever liberty is worshiped and loyalty 
exalted, his name and deeds are known. His image is in all 
hearts, his name to-day is on all lips. That grand and lofty 
man was the rail-splitter of Illinois, — beloved, sainted, im- 
mortal Abraham Lincoln, statesman, philosopher, and patriot, 
the greatest, noblest, purest soul that ever was enwrapped in 
clay, to walk the earth, — Abraham Lincoln, the emancipator 
of a race, the savior of the Union! 

Strangely enough, the election to the Presidency of this 
great and good and just man was the signal for revolt. "In 
your hands," said he in his first inaugural address, — "In your 
hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is 
the momentous issue of civil war. You can have no conflict 
without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath 
registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall 
have the most solemn one to ' preserve, protect, and defend ' it." 

But the blow was struck, — the blow that was ultimately to 
destroy slavery, and make our country free indeed, — "a land 
without a serf, a servant, or a slave." 

The war to preserve the integrity of the nation was marked 
by great battles, weary marches, long sieges, and splendid 
deeds of daring. Brave men met brave men, and gallant sol- 
diers stormed forts and heights by gallant soldiers defended. 
If America wept for the folly and madness of some, yet was 
she proud of the courage of all her sons. We think to-night 
of the mighty struggle that ended with Appomattox's cloudless 
day; of all the fields where saber flashed, and cannon roared, 
and patriot sons sealed their devotion with their blood. The 
world knows the result. Freedom triumphed. The Union 
was saved, liberty survived, slavery perished and is dead upon 
our soil forevermore, — dead by the sword of immortal Grant, 
"dead by the hand of Abraham Lincoln, dead by the justice 
of Almighty God." 



60 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

Rejoice, O human hearts and human lips, that liberty sur- 
vived. Rejoice, O men of the North, that slavery is dead. 
Rejoice, men of the South, that slavery is dead. Rejoice, 
O sons of the Republic, that the crown was restored to the 
brow of liberty, that, reunited and reconciled, loyal and true, 
we stand to-day, hand in hand, heart beating with heart, 
under the blessed and ever-triumphant banner of the Union. 

And thus may we ever stand, — one people, one nation, — 
no North, no South, no East, no West, — one altar, one love, 
one hope. 

And thus may we ever stand, — brothers in peace, brothers 
in war, — and "highly resolve that government of the people, 
by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the 
earth." 

And thus may we ever stand, — a Union of hearts and of 
states, and "teach men that liberty is not a mockery, and a 
republic is not another name for feebleness and anarchy." 

And standing thus, the world cannot prevail against us in 
war or in peace. 

Fellow-citizens, in this hour of mourning we may without 
impropriety indulge ourselves in feelings of pride over the 
glorious deeds of our heroes dead and living. Pittsburg Land- 
ing, Chattanooga, and Vicksburg; Lookout Mountain, Gettys- 
burg, and Antietam; the Wilderness, Atlanta, and Richmond, 

— all are eternal witnesses to the deathless valor and sublime 
courage of those upon whose graves we have tenderly laid our 
flowers and upon whose brows we have lovingly placed the 
laurel wreath of victory and peace. No poor words of mine 
can tell them of our love or add unto their fame; the one is 
unspeakable, the other as broad and all-comprehensive as the 
earth, as high and spotless as the stars. 

Upon the hearts of many heroes who made our country free 

— who with their blood washed away the ebon blot on our 
country's shield — inexorable death has laid his hand, and the 
high and the low, the mighty general and the humble private, 
repose alike in the equal grave. All-conquering "time, the 
tomb-builder," is day by day mustering out the noble army 
that went forth to save, to make and to preserve us a nation. 
Halleck, Thomas, Meade, McClellan, Hancock, McDowell, 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS. 61 

Garfield, Logan, Sheridan, Sherman, Harrison, Porter, McKin- 
ley, — all have been gathered to their fathers, gone to grasp 
the hands of their comrades on the peaceful shores of Eternal 
Rest. 

But of him, the simple, silent, steadfast man; of him that 
marshaled order out of chaos, gave direction to mighty armies 
and led them to final victory; of him who made the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln a glorious reality, an 
eternal fact which broke the chains that held a race in bond- 
age; of him who bore his great honors so modestly and meekly 
in war and peace; of him who by his genius added to our 
arms a luster as imperishable as his fame, and left his coun- 
trymen the priceless legacy of an untarnished and immortal 
name; of him who was ambitious, not as a Caesar, not as a 
Napoleon, but as a Washington, with no higher aim, no loftier 
purpose, than to serve his country, not to wear a crown; of 
him who stood before uncovered kings and was saluted by the 
emperors of the earth, but never forget his humble origin nor 
lost his sympathy for the poor and lowly; of him whose deeds, 
from duty and necessity, not from choice, were war, but whose 
heart ever yearned, whose voice ever pleaded, for peace, — what 
human tongue can speak of the spotless, peerless General 
Grant? His mighty work is done, his triumphal march is 
ended, his name is for all time. Reverently and tenderly we 
lay our flowers upon his tomb to-day; gratefully and lovingly 
we breathe his sacred name. Calm, cool, and undaunted, 
victorious in war, magnanimous in peace, — 

" Nothing can cover his high lame, but Heaven ; 
No pyramids set off his memories, 
But the eternal substance of his greatness ; 
To which I leave him." 

But of the rank and file, of the unknown dead, what can be 
said? Sleep on, humble soldier boy, sleep on! No more 
shall the midnight attack, the fierce charge, or the bugle-call 
to arms rouse thee from thy rest. Sleep on in thy lowly 
sepulcher, guarded by thy country's tenderest love and pil- 
lowed on her grateful heart. Whether it be beneath polished 
marble and sculptured alabaster reared by the hands of affec- 
tion, or beneath the green sod watered by tears of love; 



62 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

whether it be beneath rich, fragrant flowers blooming in peren- 
nial freshness and cared for by dear ones left behind, or in the 
lonely, pathless woods where in darkness and thick gloom you 
laid down your life; whether it be in the fertile valley where 
your life blood reddened the grass of the meadow, or in the in- 
trenchment of death, facing the pitiless storm of shot and 
shell; whether it be in the prison-pen, where your heart-throbs 
grew faint, but your undying love for the Stars and Stripes 
could not be seduced into deserting your country, or in sultry 
mountain passes where you wearied of the march, and, fever- 
stricken, fell down to die, — wheresoever it be, on land or in 
ocean depths, humble soldier boy, sleep on! Thy cause was 
liberty; thy purpose, Union; thy object, a nation purged and 
purified of slavery. Thy great deeds are thy eternal monu- 
ment. Written on the nation's heart and in the everlasting 
Book of Life, thy name shall live forevermore, fadeless to 
eternity. 

" Oh, the victory, the victory 

Belongs to thee ! 
God ever keeps the brightest crown for such as thou. 

He gives it now to thee. 
Oh, young and brave, and early and thrice blest ! 

Thrice, thrice, thrice blest ! 
Thy country turns once more to kiss thy youthful brow, 

And takes thee gently, gently to her breast, 
And whispers lovingly, ' God bless thee — bless thee now, 

My darling, thou shalt rest ! ' " 

My countrymen, one and all, — if enemies in the dark days 
of estrangement, brothers now and forever, — let us rejoice 
that under God we have a reunited country, that the Union 
was preserved, that Liberty, crowned and sceptered, sits en- 
throned in the constitution; and with our eyes fixed on the 
one and only banner of the loyal heart, let us reverently re- 
solve to show ourselves in some measure worthy of our ances- 
tors and our brethren who fought and died to make this 
blessed land the home of freedom, free lips and free hands, 
forever. 

The dead soldiers of the republic, the heroes of the Revolu- 
tion, the heroes of 1812, the heroes of 1848, the heroes of 1861, 
the heroes of 1898, — they sleep in glory. But what of the 



MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS. 63 

living? soldiers of the republic, wheresoe'er you are 
to-night, on land or sea, in frigid north or torrid south, on 
frontier guarding the outposts of civilization, or in far Luzon 
defending with sleepless vigilance the flag of our hearts, God 
bless and keep you. Be of good cheer. Your country believes 
in you and loves you. If you return, she will clasp you close 
to her heart and bestow on you the rewards of peace; if you 
fall righting her battles, she will be mother to your children 
and treasure you as she treasures those who preserved the flag 
you have lifted and hold on high. 

My countrymen, the heroes of every battle-field of the re- 
public — from Bunker Hill to Santiago — look down to-night 
from their portals of eternal light and beseech us to be true to 
the principles in vindication of which they died. Nay, more: 
from every land made sacred by heroism, from every dungeon 
of agony and death where truth has suffered on the rack for 
conscience' sake, from Marathon and Thermopylae, from Run- 
nymede and Bannockburn, from the graves of Kosciusko and 
Hampden, from the scaffolds of Sidney and Emmet, comes a 
voice beseeching us to be faithful to our mission, to guard jeal- 
ously the citadel of liberty, and to vindicate by our wisdom 
and righteousness and justice the holy cause of freedom. 

Oh! can we stand unmoved when thus addressed? Let us 
heed these warning voices and hearken to these solemn ad- 
monitions, and here and now, on this Memorial Day, with all 
the memories and lessons of the past fresh in our hearts, let 
us renew our devotion and reaffirm our allegiance to the cause 
of liberty and union, let us rededicate and reconsecrate our- 
selves to the service of our country. 

How shall we fittingly commemorate the honored dead? 
When Greece was threatened by the Persian army, Athens 
sent out a handful of her bravest sons to meet the myriad 
hosts of Darius. Oh! the intrepid courage, the sublime patri- 
otism, of that Grecian band as they advanced across the plain 
of Marathon with leveled spears to fall upon the heathen horde 
that came to plunder and destroy. To commemorate the splen- 
did victory of Miltiades over Datis, of enlightened civilization 
over brutish barbarism, the Athenians erected a mound on that 
historic plain, and as a special and the highest mark of honor 



64 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

buried their heroes where they had fallen. The light of Athens 
has gone out forever; her glory has departed, never to return; 
her power has vanished, never to be regained; the voice of her 
sublime philosophers and peerless orators is heard no more; 
the language of Homer and Demosthenes lives only in immor- 
tal type, the priceless heritage of the human race; the match- 
less art of Phidias and Praxiteles is of the past, and the unap- 
proached masterpieces of the Parthenon have been eaten away 
by the gnawing tooth of irreverent time; a melancholy gloom 
of utter desolation and departed splendor broods over the 
"City of the Violet Crown," the once first and proudest city in 
the world. But, after a lapse of more than twenty centuries, — 
centuries which have seen the death of the old and the birth of 
the new civilization, the rise and fall of dynasties, the creation 
and decay of empires, — after a lapse of more than twenty cen- 
turies the earthen mound at Marathon still remains, clad to- 
day in the flowers of spring, an eternal witness to the valor 
and heroism of Athens, a solemn reminder that those who die 
in defense of liberty and country shall not perish from the 
memory of men. 

Let the monument to our heroes be the land they saved, 
domed and canopied by the heavens that smiled upon their 
cause. For so long as the sun in his coming kisses and glori- 
fies that blessed banner, or, sinking, burnishes our mountain 
tops with crimson gold; so long as yonder waves roll inward 
to break and die upon the shore; so long as the American 
heart beats to the transports of a true and lofty patriotism, or 
man has aspirations for light and liberty; so long as the Nation 
lives; so long as the flag of Washington and Lincoln and 
McKinley is in the sky, — even so long will our heroes' fame 
survive and be an inspiration to the Union's sons forever and 
forever. 



ST. PATRICK." 65 



"ST. PATRICK." 

[An oration delivered before the United Irish Societies of San Fran- 
cisco, at the Central Theatre, Monday, March 18, 1901.] 

Mr. President, — Everywhere, at home and abroad, on land 
and on sea, wherever the Christian civilization has penetrated, 
there rises to Heaven, on the wings of prayer, the name of him 
in whose honor and in commemoration of whose achievements 
we are gathered here to-day. Wherever Christianity has lifted 
her celestial banner, the great, splendid, and holy deeds of 
St. Patrick are being recalled and recounted with gratitude, 
with reverence, and with love. [Applause.] It is a day con- 
secrated to religious observance. It is a sacred and holy day, 
made so by the labors of that humble follower of the lowly 
Nazarene. It is a day for memories and for tears. It is a day 
of proud and grateful recollections. It is a day to remember 
and to hope — to remember the dead and their sorrows, to hope 
for the future disenthrallment of the Irish nation. [Applause.] 

This day, my friends, is one of the most sacred in the circle 
of the year. The Fourth of July causes the heart of America 
to beat with unutterable emotion; the Fourteenth of July 
swells the heart of France with patriotic enthusiasm; for each 
recalls the mighty struggle of a people to be free; each awakens 
voices that spoke for freedom, and starts from the grave heroes 
and martyrs that died in her righteous cause. But the Seven- 
teenth of March is sacred, not from a religious point of view 
only; it is sacred because of the long struggle for freedom that 
it suggests; and it is dear to the Irish heart, dear to every 
heart that believes in the civilization of Christ and in the 
right of man to self-government. [Applause.] 

This day is devoted not only to a recollection of the Chris- 
tian services of St. Patrick, but also to a commemoration of the 
martyrdom of those who have toiled and died for the land 
which he redeemed from pagan darkness. [Applause.] 

Who was St. Patrick? What was his conquest? Over what 



66 SAMUEL M. SHORTKIDGE. 

and whom did he triumph? Going back to the third and 
fourth centuries of the Christian era, we see the world covered 
with darkness. We think to-day of the man, chosen of God, 
who went to that island to which your memories fondly turn, 
and there converted to a belief in the Master a whole people. 
Round about and over Ireland thick darkness had gathered 
and settled down. She was the farthest west of the then 
known world, the very outpost of the westward march of man, 
cut off from the Continent, lost in the sea. She was a stranger 
to Christianity, but her people, though pagan, possessed a 
certain loftiness of mind and worship. They had not deified 
the beasts of the field; they did not worship images born of 
the earth. They, the early Milesians, were superior to many 
races of their age; they worshiped the sun and all the hosts of 
heaven; even then, far back in the gloom, before the advent 
of St. Patrick, they lifted their faces upward toward the sky. 

You are familiar with the life of St. Patrick, — how, born, 
nursed, and reared in poverty and obscurity, he was taken 
captive to Ireland and there tended the flocks upon the hill- 
sides, working as a slave; you remember his miraculous es- 
cape; you recall his years of toil, of preparation, of study, of 
devotion, in order that he might be competent to perform the 
great work for which God intended him. You remember his 
yearning to return to Ireland, where he had toiled as a slave, 
to free that people from the bondage of paganism and the 
darkness of ignorance. You remember his return to that 
island and that he found it as he had left it, given over to 
pagan worship. I recall to-day his historic meeting with the 
king of Tara. The shamrock, which is not only emblematic 
of Ireland's past, present, and future, but also suggests the toil, 
the struggle, and the tears of Erin, was made sacred that day 
by St. Patrick. Standing there before the throne and its as- 
sembled guards — the bards with their harps — evidences of pa- 
gan worship on every side — unarmed with barbaric weapon, 
but panoplied with God's armor of truth, he pleaded with- 
out fear the cause of Christ. Failing to impress the king with 
the idea of the Trinity, St. Patrick stooped to the earth and 
plucked up a shamrock and showed the three leaves growing 
upon the one stem — explained how the three leaves received 



"ST. PATRICK." 67 

nourishment from the same root, and thereby made clear the 
Christian idea of the Trinity, — the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost. By that simple illustration it is said he drew a per- 
suasive argument that converted the pagan king. With the 
conversion of the king followed the conversion of his people. 
Thence, from district to district, from county and section to 
county and section, all over Ireland, St. Patrick carried the 
torch of Christianity and of civilization. And it is a proud 
recollection, it ought to be a proud boast, — if, indeed, we may 
boast of such triumphs, — that the torch which St. Patrick 
lighted there has never been extinguished. [Applause.] The 
flame which he there placed upon the altar of God has re- 
mained burning throughout all the centuries, burning steadily, 
dispelling the surrounding darkness and sending its civilizing 
beams to the uttermost parts of the earth. 

The teachings of St. Patrick, the apostle, were the teachings 
of Jesus Christ. He taught patience; he taught loving-kind- 
ness; he taught charity; he taught peace and love; he taught a 
belief in an eternal and beneficent Father. He builded churches 
and instructed in the arts of civilization; nay, more: he planted 
Christian civilization in Ireland, which, because of its piety, 
was for ages known as the "Sacred Isle." All round about 
that island, I repeat, was darkness; but her light did not go 
out. England, across the sea, which had theretofore submitted 
to the flag of Christianity, fell back into paganism. Ireland, 
once converted to the true faith, never faltered, never wavered, 
but became the champion and defender of Christianity, the 
proselytizer for the whole earth. [Applause.] Her sons be- 
came missionaries to all lands, — to France, to Germany, to 
Italy, to Scotland, to England. Yes, to England; for England 
had relapsed into paganism, and St. Patrick's disciples and 
successors reconquered her for Christ. [Applause.] 

Think of the triumph of St. Patrick! He converted a whole 
nation without shedding a drop of blood ! He was a great 
conqueror, not as a Caesar, not as an Alexander, not as a Han- 
nibal, not as a Mahomet, spreading his doctrine by sword and 
fire, but as a humble follower of the Saviour, — gentle, chari- 
table, kind, — by words of promise, by acts of love, robbing 
the grave of its victory and death of its sting, — teaching the 



68 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

accountability of man, the immortality of the soul. By the 
Cross, not the sword, he overthrew all the hosts of darkness; 
by the Cross, not the sword, he established God's kingdom in 
Ireland. [Applause.] Great, splendid, beneficent conqueror, 
compared with whom those whose names I have mentioned 
shrink into nothingness, sink into contempt. Lofty and di- 
vine conqueror! "As the cedars of Lebanon are higher than 
the grass of the valley, as the heavens are higher than the 
earth, as man is higher than the beasts of the field, as the 
angels are higher than man," so St. Patrick, patriot and priest, 
serene and majestic, rises above the blood-stained conquerors 
of the past. They excite our horror, he our love; they ruled 
with sword of fire, he by words of Christ; they deserve ever- 
lasting execration, he eternal gratitude; they wore diadems of 
gold, soon snatched away to deck other guilty brows; he wears 
a crown of glory, bestowed by Almighty God, to remain for- 
ever and forever! [Applause.] 

"If there be a God above, — and that there is, all nature 
cries aloud, through all her works"; if the religion of Jesus of 
Nazareth be a blessing and a comfort, — and that it is, our 
civilization attests; if to unfurl His banner and redeem a whole 
nation from pagan darkness be a work of goodness and great- 
ness; if to break the bonds of ignorance and enlarge the do- 
minion of the human soul be a glorious deed, — then, thus 
measured by words spoken and things done, did St. Patrick 
earn the reward of Heaven and the gratitude and veneration 
of earth! 

This day is consecrate to freedom. To every man who be- 
lieves in religious and civil liberty this day is holy. The Sev- 
enteenth of March has come to stand for freedom and the 
righteous cause of self-government; and our thoughts may 
well linger to-day for a moment upon the struggle for freedom 
and self-government of that island which was "redeemed, re- 
generated, and disenthralled" from paganism by St. Patrick. 

The histor}^ of Ireland fills the heart with indignation and 
the eye with tears. How long, Lord, how long have thy 
people suffered! The world weeps over the tomb of Greece 
and laments the fall of Jerusalem. And the world does well. 
But the world too often gives its sympathy to the dead and 



"ST. PATRICK." 69 

denies it to the living. What says the world to-day of Ire- 
land's wrongs? What says the world to-day of the expiring 
agonies of those little, heroic republics yonder in Africa? 
Shall the voice of America be silent or silenced? Shall the 
word of sympathy, of encouragement, be unspoken? Shall 
timid diplomacy make us false to freedom? Let us not forget; 
let us not forget. But we do forget; we do forget that the 
battle which Ireland has fought and is fighting was our battle 
once, — the battle for home rule, for self-government. [Ap- 
plause.] 

The history of Ireland is one sad tale of patient suffering 
and heroic daring, of countless voluntary offerings of life for 
native land. Go, read her history; it is one long tear-stained, 
blood-stained tragedy. I cannot on this occasion go into the 
details of that awful tragedy. I must confine myself to re- 
minding you of certain headlands, mountain peaks of history, 
to a few great events that mark the birth and death of free- 
dom, and to a few heroic hearts that beat and bled for God 
and native land. 

The sons and daughters of Erin may proudly recall that 
Ireland did what few nations have ever done. Alone, unaided, 
she broke the bonds of the foreign oppressor. Under the im- 
mortal Brian Boru she rose and re-established her complete 
independence, throwing off the domination of the Danes and 
the men from the north. Yes, there at Clontarf, in 1014, 
under the leadership of Brian Boru, Ireland was her own de- 
liverer, and demonstrated her right to be free. [Applause.] 
And that right was inherent and indestructible. [Ap- 
plause.] Divided into clans, she was, nevertheless, one people, 
one distinct branch of the human family, free, and with 
right to be free. When did she part with that freedom? Who 
robbed her of that freedom? It is claimed that England ac- 
quired rightful dominion over Ireland by the so-called con- 
quest of Henry II. in 1171. In the name of all her heroes 
dead and living, I deny that England had a right to conquer 
Ireland then or since. [Applause.] And in the name of his- 
toric truth I deny that Ireland was conquered by Henry II. in 
1171. I beg to impress that date upon the young men and 
women here, for that so-called and pretended conquest under 



70 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

Henry II. is the original source of the alleged right of England 
to govern and make laws for Ireland. The conquest of Henry 
II. was no conquest at all. It was a mere sham, a pretense. 
It is true he made a landing and gained a few feet of earth at 
Dublin; but the spirit, the manhood, the people of Ireland of 
that day were not struck down. [Applause.] But, my friends, 
it is that event, that landing there, that lingering for six 
months by Henry II. , which has been the source of title, the 
starting-point of England's claim of right to govern and control 
as a mere dependency the island which you love. [Applause.] 
Bear that date and that event in mind; for it is a great land- 
mark in Irish history. 

For centuries before 1171, Ireland was a free, a progressive, 
and in many ways a remarkable, people. England paid little 
attention to her, apparently cared nothing for her; when she 
did look toward her, it was with the scoff or sneer of ignorance 
and assumed superiority. But did Ireland, thus neglected, re- 
lapse into darkness? No; the light of Christianity still burned 
on her many altars. Did she fall into degradation and ruin? 
No; the work of national evolution went on, from lower to 
higher things. She was a light set in the sea. Her schools 
attracted students from all the nations of Europe; Alfred the 
Great learned music from her harp; her sons were famed for 
their valor and chivalry, her daughters for their beauty and 
purity. Science taught, art softened and refined, and classic 
thoughts and Christian faith were embalmed in her wondrous 
books. And later, the barbaric cruelty of Cromwell might out- 
rage, but it did not brutalize, the Irish people. Misfortune 
but increased their love for native land; persecution but 
strengthened their faith. [Applause.] 

In 1688, five centuries after the landing of Henry II. at 
Dublin, came the Revolution in England, — a great epoch 
for England, a great epoch for Ireland. To England it 
meant greater freedom; to Ireland it meant greater oppression. 
James II. was driven from the English throne; but not by the 
English unaided; no, they looked abroad for assistance, and 
transferred the crown to a foreigner. As a base of operation, 
James sought refuge in Ireland. The Irish people rallied 
round him, not, we are told by conservative historians, because 



"ST. PATRICK." 71 

they were devoted to his dynasty or to his person, but because 
he afforded them a rallying-point to fight for national inde- 
pendence and freedom from foreign dominion. Ireland made 
another gallant attempt to throw off the yoke and break the 
chain of Cromwell. She failed — so did Athens. She failed 
— so did Jerusalem. But proudly remember, — poetry has 
sung it, oratory has told it, lofty and loving eloquence has 
immortalized it, — proudly remember the battle of the Boyne 
and the heroic defense of Limerick! Through the shadow and 
tears of centuries, centuries of misfortune, centuries of wrong, 
rises the patriot soldier, Patrick Sarsfield. [Applause.] 

The surrender of Sarsfield in 1691 was followed by the 
Treaty of Limerick, a treaty which, if it had been observed, 
might have prevented the national tragedy of which Ireland 
has been the bleeding victim, but a treaty violated, made to 
be violated. I grieve to recall the awful, the horrible, the 
cruel, the monstrous laws that marked its violation, — laws 
thereafter passed to degrade, enslave, and destroy the Irish 
people. 

Remember 1691! Remember it, for that date marks the 
starting-point for a series of acts, a kind and policy of legisla- 
tion, which brought so much unhappiness to Ireland, so much 
misery, caused so many tears, and broke the hearts of so many 
men, women, and children. The results of the violation of 
that treaty have been written on the brows and carved in the 
hearts of the Irish people. No lover of humanity can look 
back upon that period of Irish misery without a shudder. 
Limerick had fallen; "all hope of national freedom was lost"; 
"the silence of death had settled down upon Ireland." "No 
Englishman who loves what is noble in the English temper 
can tell, without sorrow and shame, the story of that time of 
guilt." 

If there be any here who question my statements, who doubt 
their historic truth, I beg you to turn back and review the 
legislation for Ireland from 1691 — the Treaty of Limerick — 
down to 1782. Will you believe it? Can it be believed? Can 
you believe that laws were passed by which no Catholic in 
Ireland might own a foot of soil upon which he was born? 
Would you believe that no Catholic of Ireland could enter the 



72 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

legal profession or sit upon the bench? Would you believe 
that his children, pledges of his affection, idols of his heart, 
for whom he would gladly die, could not be given education? 
Would you believe that a civilized people could pass laws 
which would prevent a man from becoming a teacher and 
teaching the poor and the ignorant? Would you believe that 
a law could be passed which made it a felony to send the chil- 
dren out of Ireland for the sole purpose of educating them? 
Would you believe that a law was passed which provided that 
if a father should send his children to France to be educated, 
such children could never inherit property in England or in 
Ireland? Would you believe that an enlightened people, or 
any people, would pass laws which made it unlawful and a fel- 
ony for a man to worship God according to the dictates of his 
own conscience? And yet these are but brief suggestions of 
the infamy of the Penal Laws which were enacted and enforced 
upon the Irish people, in violation of the Treaty of Limerick 
and in violation of the God-given rights of man. [Applause.] 
These awful Penal Laws continued in force for over a hun- 
dred years. They were the weapons of intolerance and bigo- 
try; they were aimed at and struck the Catholic. His reli- 
gion was made a crime; to profess it was to invite prison; to 
teach it was to court death. But the spirit of civil and reli- 
gious liberty could not be crushed, or torn, or burnt out of the 
Irish heart. Ireland's genius — the valor of her sons — the 
patriotism of her daughters — rebelled against these infamous 
laws. [Applause.] Why not? Has not human nature the 
right to strike at the oppressor? Has not poverty the right to 
stand by its hut and repel the invader? The hearth of Ireland 
was violated; her altar profaned. She sorrowed, and there 
was none to help her. Think of it! I am speaking of the 
eighteenth century — of a period scarcely a hundred years ago. 
The right of Ireland to legislative independence had been 
championed long before, by one who lives to-day, by a man 
whose genius and cause have made his name immortal — the 
celebrated William Molyneux. [Applause.] In 1698 he pub- 
lished his great book, The Case of Ireland, and proved that 
Henry II. and his Anglo-Norman adventurers had never made 
conquest of Ireland, and that England had never acquired the 



"ST. PATRICK." 73 

right to legislate for her. Yes, the book of Molyneux was 
burned by the hangman; but the truth which breathed in its 
pages survived the flames, and lived, and lives to-day, "strong 
with the strength and quick with the vitality of truth." And 
no scaffold, or fire, or sword, can destroy that eternal truth. 
[Applause.] 

Let me impress upon your minds another great event in 
Irish history, and that is the Act which was passed in the 
sixth year of George I., in 1720. The Treaty of Limerick, in 
1691, which guaranteed to the people of Ireland protection in 
their homes, protection in their religious worship and in all that 
goes under the term of individual liberty, had been violated. 
But more: by this Act of 1720, the little remaining liberties of 
Ireland were swept away. In substance, that Act declared that 
Ireland had no rights whatever; that she was less than a 
colony; that she was practically a foreign people, a depen- 
dency that must look to England for her laws, her legislation, 
her life. George I., obstinate, bigoted, and tyrannical, struck 
that mortal blow to liberty, and declared by that Act that 
Ireland was altogether and absolutely dependent upon Eng- 
land. But, be it said to the glory of the Irish people, you 
may cast them into prison, you may kill them upon the scaf- 
fold, you may burn them at the stake, but in spite of prison, 
scaffold, and stake, the spirit of liberty which animates their 
hearts survives, and cannot be destroyed. [Applause.] Brian 
Boru in 1014 had re-established the independence of Ireland; 
the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 had guaranteed that indepen- 
dence; but the Act of George I. in 1720 sounded the death- 
knell, it was supposed, of that independence. The English 
Parliament had no more right to pass or enforce that Act than 
it had to pass or enforce the Stamp Act. [Applause.] 

Our American forefathers fled from England to seek free- 
dom, civil and religious, in the New World. The spirit of lib- 
erty was abroad in the latter years of the eighteenth century. 
It fired the heart of Patrick Henry; it touched the lips of 
Samuel Adams. America was in arms. The hope of Ireland 
revived. Crushed, wounded and bleeding, robbed and be- 
trayed, her people still loved and clung to her; father died, 
but son inherited the same love, the same faith. The courage 



74 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

of her people took heart, and there was the great uprising, — 
the passionate appeal that shook the throne against which our 
fathers rebelled. I speak of a period in Ireland which corre- 
sponds to the time of our Revolution. Our forefathers here in 
America were being led to victory by the ever-venerated and 
unconquerable Washington, an honorary member of the 
Friendly Sons of St. Patrick. [Applause.] The Irish people 
were marshaled by the immortal orator, patriot, and states- 
man, Henry Grattan. [Applause.] The Irish people were 
crushed under a power compared with which our fathers' 
treatment was loving-kindness itself. But they had at last 
found a leader, and answering his inspiring appeals they rose 
as the "Volunteers of Ireland" and demanded justice — de- 
manded home rule, demanded self-government. [Applause.] 
The Volunteers of Ireland! What moderation, what sublime 
patience, what confidence in the justice of their cause! We 
fought England, and her boastful banner lay in the dust at 
our feet. The surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, in 
October, 1781, was followed by the Declaration of Irish Rights, 
by the Irish Parliament, in the month of April, 1782. [Ap- 
plause.] I beg you to bear in mind those two events; for they 
are monuments in the path of liberty. Our independence was 
finally and reluctantly acknowledged — wrested from England 
by the sword. And here let me say, that, however much I 
reverence Daniel O'Connell, I sometimes believe that Thomas 
Francis Meagher was right when, in criticising his conservative 
method of peaceful agitation, he declared that it is only by the 
sword that liberty can be extorted from the tyrant. [Ap- 
plause.] We had thus extorted our independence; we had 
made the great fight for self-government, and won. 

Largely owing to our example in America, Henry Grattan 
was able to rouse the Irish people — to allay all local petty 
dissensions — and unite them in a solid mass. The Volunteers 
of Ireland struck terror into the heart of the English govern- 
ment. Standing in the old Irish Parliament, whose legisla- 
tive powers had been reduced to a mere mockery, that great 
and unrivaled orator uttered thoughts that can never die. 
Let me thrill your hearts by a repetition of his memorable 
words: — 



"ST. PATRICK." 75 

"I wish for nothing but to breathe, in this our island, in 
common with my fellow-subjects, the air of liberty. I have 
no ambition, unless it be to break your chains and contem- 
plate your glory. I never will be satisfied so long as the 
meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the British chain 
clanking to his rags; he may be naked, he shall not be in 
irons; and I do see the time is at hand, the spirit has gone 
forth, the declaration is planted; and though great men should 
apostatize, yet the cause will live; and though the public 
speaker should die, yet the immortal fire shall outlast the or- 
gan which conveyed it, and the breath of liberty, like the word 
of the holy man, will not die with the prophet, but survive it. 

"I shall move you, 'That the King's most excellent Majesty, 
and the Lords and Commons of Ireland, are the only power 
competent to make laws to bind Ireland.'" 

The Irish Parliament, so long overawed and intimidated by 
power, passed that declaration — a declaration as true as the 
one written by our own immortal Jefferson. Listen now to 
Grattan's exultant words of triumph, joy, and hope: — 

"I am now to address a free people; ages have passed away, 
and this is the first moment in which you could be distin- 
guished by that appellation. 

"I have spoken on the subject of your liberty so often that 
I have nothing to add, and have only to admire by what 
heaven-directed steps you have proceeded until the whole fac- 
ulty of the nation is braced up to the act of her own deliver- 
ance. 

"I found Ireland on her knees, I watched over her with an 
eternal solicitude; I have traced her progress from injuries to 
arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift ! spirit of 
Molyneux! your genius has prevailed! Ireland is a nation! 
In that new character I hail her, and, bowing to her august 
presence, I say, Esto perpetual " 

That declaration of Irish rights was petitioned for by nine 
tenths of the Irish people, — yes, by practically all of the Irish 
people, — and that declaration was heeded by the English Par- 
liament, which conceded legislative independence to Ireland. 
This the English Parliament did by repealing the Act of 
George L, to which I have referred and begged you to remem- 



76 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

ber. England went further. On January 22, 1783, she passed 
a law which admitted the claim of Ireland to be just, and ac- 
knowledged her right to self-government to be beyond dispute. 
That law was as follows: " Be it enacted, that the right claimed 
by the people of Ireland to be bound only by laws enacted by 
his Majesty and the Parliament of that kingdom, in all cases 
whatever, and to have all actions and suits at law or in 
equity, which may be instituted in that kingdom, decided in 
his Majesty's courts therein, finally and without appeal from 
thence, shall be, and is hereby declared to be, established and 
ascertained forever, and shall at no time hereafter be ques- 
tioned or questionable." We shall soon see how this solemn 
declaration, this plighted faith of a great nation, was broken. 

You wonder, young man, young woman, why there should 
have been any hesitancy on the part of the Irish Parliament 
to demand legislative independence for Ireland. This is a day 
for frankness and for truth, and I will tell you that there was 
then, as there has since been, a mere handful of men in Ire- 
land who were not in sympathy with her national aspirations 
or with the great mass of her people. [Applause.] 

Another fact I beg you to remember, which explains some 
otherwise unaccountable events of history — events that 
shackled Ireland's limbs and caused her to part with her free- 
dom. The free Irish Parliament, in Dublin, which existed 
from 1782 down to 1800, did not contain within its number 
one solitary Catholic. Remember that. Under the cruel and 
unjust laws, born of bigotry and prejudice, passed after and in 
violation of the Treaty of Limerick, the Catholics of Ireland, 
though constituting five sixths, probably seven eighths, of the 
population, were denied the right of voting or of holding office. 
So that the Irish Parliament was made up exclusively of 
Protestants. Remember that fact; for it explains much. I 
refer to it with regret, and out of reverence for the truth of 
history. But, more: when legislative independence was 
granted to Ireland the great body of the people supposed that 
there would be enfranchisement by the Irish Parliament of the 
great Catholic population. Had not the Catholic brought 
about that independence — stood shoulder to shoulder with his 
Protestant brother as a Volunteer? But they were not en- 



"ST. PATRICK." 77 

franchisee!, and never during its period of existence was a man 
who believed in the Catholic faith a member of that Irish 
Parliament. There was some relaxation in the enforcement 
of the cruel Penal Laws against Catholics, some little relief, it 
is true; but the people, the great body and mass of the people 
of Ireland, did not have representation even in their own Par- 
liament. Henry Grattan was a Protestant, but Henry Grattan 
pleaded, and pleaded in vain, for the enfranchisement of his 
Catholic brethren. [Applause.] It is sad to relate that the 
express and tacit promises of relief that had been made were 
broken. The high hopes that had sprung up in Catholic 
hearts were blasted. As before, the few controlled, the many 
obeyed. 

In 1798 — and "Who fears to speak of '98?" [applause] — 
there were men in Ireland, as before and since, who loved their 
country dearer than life, and thought it a rare privilege to die 
for their native land. Yes, he has been called rash and foolish, 
condemned as a dreamer, denounced as an impractical enthu- 
siast; I know that Grattan did not approve, but what man 
that loves Ireland does not to-day revere Theobald Wolfe Tone? 
[Applause.] If you shall ever wander in that little church- 
yard some eighteen miles from Dublin, your hearts will guide 
your feet until you stand by the grave of Wolfe Tone. Stand- 
ing there, you will read upon the slab which marks his grave 
the sentiment which was ever the inspiration of his life, — 
"God bless Ireland!" [Applause.] The year 1798 recalls 
another hero, impatient of wrong — young, gallant, handsome 
Lord Edward Fitzgerald, as brave and true a patriot as ever 
shed his blood in vain for his native land! [Applause.] 

Ireland still had her legislative independence, but that in- 
dependence was represented by a fanatic minority of her people. 
In time, however, I feel sure there would have been vol- 
untary enfranchisement of the Catholics and wholesome legis- 
lation for reviving and upbuilding Irish manufactures and 
commerce. The wounds of centuries had to heal; the wrongs 
of centuries had to be righted. Time was needed. As 1800 
drew nigh, England was in dire trouble; she was menaced on 
all sides. Did Ireland join with England's enemies? No; she 
furnished her arms and gave her funds in defense of the empire. 



78 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

And here it may be timely to remark that the conservative 
leaders of Ireland, during the period of her legislative inde- 
pendence, long before and since, did not favor cutting loose en- 
tirely from the British Empire. Ireland then demanded what 
Canada to-day enjoys. She claimed what Australia has en- 
joyed and to-day enjoys. She wanted home rule, self-govern- 
ment, even as California has it under the canopy of the 
Federal constitution. [Applause.] This is what Grattan, 
Flood, and Curran demanded; this is what O'Connell de- 
manded — nothing more, nothing less. 

Let me call your attention to the death of the Irish Parlia- 
ment — the folly of Ireland, the crime of England. The 
stupid, obstinate George III. was on the throne. William Pitt, 
son of the great Chatham, was Prime Minister. That Pitt was 
a great and remarkable man; that he was a splendid orator, 
stately and sustained, superior to his father in culture, inferior 
to him in native genius; that he had large views of empire, — 
we may all admit; but he loved England first and last, and it 
was owing to him that the independence of Ireland was cloven 
down by the so-called Union of 1800. Time will not permit 
me to go into details, to show the bribery, the coercion, the 
worse than corruption, that was practiced in order to bring 
about the surrender of Irish independence. It is a sad story, 
a pathetic story, a shameful story. Up from his sick-bed, 
older in years but not less ardent, came Henry Grattan to 
protest against national suicide. The scheme for union had 
failed; a new election was called, and Grattan realized that all 
was lost. Did Demosthenes when he saw the light of Athens 
go out, did Cicero when he beheld Roman liberty dying, utter 
more lofty and sublime words than these? 

"I conclude in these moments — they seem to be the closing 
moments of your existence — by a supplication to that Power 
whom I tremble to name, that Power who has favored you for 
seven hundred years with the rights and images of a free 
government, and who has lately conducted you out of that 
desert where for a century you had wandered, that he will not 
desert you now, but will be pleased to permit our beloved con- 
stitution to delay a little longer among us and interpose His 
mercy between the stroke of death and the liberties of the 



"ST. PATRICK." 79 

people. . . . Yet I do not give up the country; I see her in a 
swoon, but she is not dead; though in her tomb she lies help- 
less and motionless, still there is on her lips a spirit of life, 
and on her cheek a glow of beauty. 

" ' Thou art not conquered ; beauty's ensign yet 
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, 
And death's pale flag is not advanced there.' 

While a plank of the vessel sticks together, I will not leave 
her. Let the courtier present his flimsy sail and carry the 
light bark of his faith with every new breath of wind — I will 
remain anchored here, with fidelity to the fortunes of my 
country, faithful to her freedom, faithful to her fall." [Ap- 
plause.] 

Yes, all was lost! The Irish Parliament voted away the in- 
dependence of Ireland! But can a parliament or a legislature 
vote away, surrender, the liberties of a free people? There- 
after, if Ireland wanted laws, she had to go to Westminster; if 
she sought redress, she had to kneel before the English Par- 
liament. William Pitt had promised the Catholics enfran- 
chisement. When too late, it was found that he had given the 
word of promise to the ear and broken it to the hope. The 
fulfillment of that promise was long delayed, until more than 
twenty years after Pitt was in his grave. 

The Act of Union was passed and the growth of a national 
spirit was arrested, the current of national life was "turned 
awry and lost the name of action." The industries of Ireland 
had theretofore been struck down and her people beggared; her 
little remaining independence, her individuality, her pride, 
had now received a mortal blow. But love for native land 
was not dead; hope for Ireland was not dead. There was 
another Irish heart willing to shed its blood for Irish national- 
ity, and that noble heart beat within the intrepid breast of 
Robert Emmet. [Applause.] Oh, how brave and fearless, so 
gifted by heaven, so enraptured with the love of country ! 
Robert Emmet! Robert Emmet! Wherever on earth there 
is a man who loves liberty, wherever there is a heart that 
beats to the transports of patriotism, wherever sympathy 
weeps for fallen freedom and sheds a tear on the martyr's 
grave, his words are treasured and his name revered. [Ap- 



80 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

plause.] Yes, yes, he did an unlawful act. So did John 
Brown, and like John Brown he mounted the scaffold without 
a blush or fear and looked calmly into the grave. Dishonored? 
No. Was Nathan Hale dishonored when he died on the scaf- 
fold, regretting that he had but one life to give for his coun- 
try? Was Robert Emmet dishonored when he so died, be- 
queathing to his country "an example which is of the lessons 
of liberty and glory unblamed, to-day and forever"? 

" But whether on the scaffold high, 
Or in the battle's van, 
The fittest place where man can die 
Is where he dies for man ! " 

Robert Emmet was dead, the few friends that had gathered 
round him were scattered, the uprising against the Union was 
crushed; but do you think the spirit of liberty was in his 
grave? Another and a greater leader rose, one who not only 
believed in Irish nationality, but shared the faith of the mass 
of the people — Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator. [Applause.] 
He was the greatest man Ireland had produced, perhaps the 
greatest she has ever produced. A man of greater physical 
courage never lived. Did he not prove it when he met D'Es- 
terre on that fatal field of honor? A man of greater moral 
courage never breathed. Did he not demonstrate it when, 
later in life, he disdained to accept the challenge of Disraeli? 
Fearless, eloquent, masterful, he caused power to tremble and 
prejudice to yield. Agitation, agitation — this was his only 
weapon; peaceful agitation within the law — appeal to con- 
science, pride, self-interest — by agitation, in season and out 
of season, he remolded Ireland into one mighty and insistent 
host whose watchwords were Emancipation and Repeal. Tem- 
porarily defeated, opposed by intrenched wealth and heredi- 
tary power, offered bribes and tempted by high positions, 
threatened, cajoled, scoffed at, and calumniated, Daniel O'Con- 
nell stood faithful to his country and his cause. He believed 
in liberty — he loved liberty, liberty of hand and heart, of 
thought and speech. He was the friend, champion, defender, 
of freedom. He was the uncompromising enemy of slavery, 
be it the slavery of his brethren in rags or the slavery of the 
negro in chains. He never wearied, never faltered, never 



"ST. PATRICK." 81 

turned back, and at last, though long delayed, his triumph came. 
In 1829 the doors of the English Parliament swung wide to 
admit Daniel O'Connell. The Catholic was free! [Applause.] 

Having liberated the Catholics of Ireland, he turned all his 
energies to Repeal — to undoing the work of 1800. But he 
would not counsel the shedding of blood; he again relied 
on peaceful agitation and in the power of public opinion. 
Younger men, inflamed by wounded pride, remembering the 
departed glory of their once free country, and impatient of de- 
lay, questioned the expediency of O'Connell's policy. They 
cited France, and told of the overthrow of tyranny in the 
ruins of the Bastile. They cited America, and recalled the 
triumphant blow struck for freedom by the farmers of Lexing- 
ton. They found a voice in Thomas Francis Meagher. Listen: 
"I am not one of those tame moralists," he exclaimed, "who 
say that liberty is not worth one drop of blood. Against this 
miserable maxim the noble virtue that has saved and sancti- 
fied humanity appears in judgment. From the blue waters of 
the Bay of Salamis; from the valley over which the sun stood 
still and lit the Israelites to victory; from the cathedral in 
which the sword of Poland has been sheathed in the shroud of 
Kosciusko; from the Convent of St. Isidore, where the fiery 
hand that rent the standard of St. George upon the plains of 
Ulster has moldered into dust; from the sands of the desert, 
where the wild genius of the Algerine so long has scared the 
eagle of the Pyrenees; from the ducal palace in this kingdom, 
where the memory of the gallant and seditious Geraldine en- 
hances more than royal favor the splendor of his race; from 
the solitary grave within this mute city, which a dying bequest 
has left without an epitaph — oh! from every spot where 
heroism has had a sacrifice or a triumph, a voice breaks in 
upon the cringing crowd that cherishes this maxim, crying, 
' Away with it! away with it! ' " 

But, wisely or unwisely, O'Connell held on his course, pa- 
tient, hopeful to the last. At Genoa, in 1847, the incorruptible 
heart, the unconquerable mind, the uncrowned king of Ireland, 
found rest. If "Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell," she 
wept over the grave of Daniel O'Connell. 

There was another great battle to be fought for religious free- 



82 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

dom, for the disestablishment of the State Church in Ireland. 
It was a long and bitterly contested battle, but justice 
finally triumphed, and to-day you and I, and all men who 
believe in freedom of conscience, in a separation of Church from 
State, should utter with grateful emotion the name of England's 
great Liberal statesman, William E. Gladstone. [Applause.] 
And these are dates and events not to be forgotten — the eman- 
cipation of the Catholics in 1829 and the disestablishment of 
the State Church in Ireland in 1869. 

My friends, from the battle of Clontarf to this hour, the 
struggle has been the same; whether under the banner of Sars- 
field, of the Volunteers, or of the United Irishmen; whether led 
by Grattan and Flood or Tone and Fitzgerald; whether died 
for by Emmet or defended by Curran; whether championed 
by Molyneux, or Swift, or Burke, or Sheridan, or O'Connell, or 
Parnell, or Gladstone — under whatever name or by whomso- 
ever defended, that struggle has been the righteous struggle of 
a gifted people for self-government, for home rule. [Applause.] 
Strange that the land of Hampden and Sidney, strange that 
the race of Chatham and Wilberforce, should have forgotten 
the maxims of Magna Charta, should have broken their own 
chains and turned to rivet them on the limbs of others. 

My countrymen, such a people has vindicated its cause — has 
vindicated its right to local self-government — if such a cause 
needs vindication. The people of Ireland, at home, abroad, 
in all ages, have manifested the highest type of genius, in the 
camp, in the forum, in the senate, and they have exhibited 
that valor, that love of country, that defiance of death, which 
makes them a people that shall be immortal when all the gov- 
ernments that now exist shall have perished from the earth. 
[Applause.] Her orators — Grattan, Curran, Phillips, Emmet, 
Burke, Sheridan, O'Connell — have reached a pitch of lofty 
speech which has never been exceeded by the orators of any 
other land. [Applause.] Her inspired poets have struck the 
harp, and wakened music, sad, pathetic, joyous, that shall 
never die. Her missionaries, faithful followers of St. Patrick, 
defiant of danger and death, have carried religion and civiliza- 
tion to the uttermost parts of the earth. [Applause.] Her 
scientists have measured the stars and explored and wrested 



"ST. PATRICK." 83 

from nature her hidden secrets. Her statesmen have exhibited 
a breadth and depth of mind, knowledge, genius, which entitle 
them to rank with the statesmen of any other country. [Ap- 
plause.] Her lawyers have shed luster on every bar and 
adorned every bench in Christendom. Her soldiers have 
fought on every field where liberty struggled with despotism — 
in the Old World and the New — from Lexington and Bunker 
Hill to Colenso. [Applause.] And her patriots and martyrs 
have exhibited a steadfast love of country which neither death, 
nor chains, nor poverty, nor exile, could destroy. They have 
gladly mounted the scaffold, they have joyfully died as a sac- 
rifice, for their native land. [Applause.] They have vindi- 
cated, they have vindicated by their valor, by their intelli- 
gence, by their virtue, by their Christian civilization, their 
right to self-government — and who shall deny it? Where 
is the voice that can answer Daniel O'Connell? Where is the 
tongue that can refute the arguments which that people has 
made for these hundred years? 

My friends, I am aware that Ireland needs no defense from 
me. I know that her cause has been defended by orators that 
rival those who pleaded for dying Greece and placed eternal 
infamy on the destroyers of Roman liberty. No; she needs no 
defense from me; but in the years to come it will be to me a 
proud recollection that to-day I had the honor to speak a few 
words, unworthy though they may be, for Ireland and her 
cause. [Applause.] 

I have detained you too long. One word, and I am done. 
There is no such thing as death. That which we call death is 
dawn, not sunset. The body perishes, but the soul ascendeth 
unto God. The body fails, but that which thinks and loves 
and hopes — the immortal mind — does not die. And I trust I 
express the sentiment and belief of your hearts and souls 
when I say that up yonder, close by the eternal throne, stand 
the spirits of Grattan, and Wolfe Tone, and Fitzgerald, and 
Emmet, and O'Connell, and, nearer, the venerated form of St. 
Patrick, pleading, pleading for the land for which they wrought 
and died. There they are! And God will yet permit His peo- 
ple to be free. [Great applause.] 



84 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 



EULOGY ON GENERAL BARNES. 

[Address at the funeral ceremonies of General W. H. L. Barnes, con- 
ducted by California Commandery No. 1, Knights Templar, July 24, 
1902.] 

" How is the strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod." 

A monarch of the forest that towered in serene and uncon- 
scious majesty above its fellows has fallen. 

A star of the first magnitude that shone with steady and 
unfailing light has set below the horizon. 

A strain of music that thrilled our souls and ravished our 
hearts away has melted into a sweet and tender memory. 

General Barnes, lawyer, thinker, orator, patriot, lies dead 
before us. That eye of beauty that burned with indignation 
or beamed with love is lusterless, those lips of eloquence are 
mute, that bewitching voice of melody is hushed, and God's 
blessed peace has smoothed away the sweat of agony from 
that imperial brow. 

We come, his brethren and friends, from all conditions of 
men, to pay to our dead brother the tribute of our love and 
tears, — from the high courts of justice, Federal and state, 
wherein he stood a worthy minister of the law; from the hall 
of fraternity, which to him was a sanctuary of duty and re- 
ligion; from the temple of art, at whose shrine he bowed a 
worshipful devotee; from school and academy and university, 
whose high purposes he proclaimed and in which he saw the 
state's safety and glory; from the avenues of peace, which he 
adorned, and the ranks of war, in which he marched, — we 
come to discharge the last sad offices the living owe the dead. 

In the presence of the awful mystery of death — a mystery 
which faith alone can solve — my lips would fain be silent. 
But his brothers and mine, men who knew him long and loved 
him well, have assigned to me the mournful duty of voicing 
the great grief that oppresses us. It is an hour when the heart 
finds solace in a few tender words, in a "few broken sentences 



EULOGY ON GENERAL BARNES. 85 

of veneration and love," rather than in elaborate or studied 
eulogy. Grant me, therefore, I pray you, your indulgence 
and your sympathy, nor judge the illustrious dead by this un- 
premeditated and unworthy tribute. 

General W. H. L. Barnes was born at West Point, New 
York, February 9, 1834. He graduated from Yale in the class 
of 1855. Devoting his life to the law, he prosecuted his studies 
under the guidance of the great lawyer, Reuben A. Chapman, 
afterward chief justice of Massachusetts, and later entered the 
office of the celebrated Charles O'Conor. Admitted to the bar, 
he formed a partnership with Joseph H. Choate, famous by 
lineage and his own achievements, now our minister to 
England, and commenced the practice of his profession in 
New York City. He was not to continue this partnership 
long. The Civil War — his country — called him from court 
to camp. He entered the army in 1861 and was assigned to 
duty on General Fitz-John Porter's staff. Contracting sick- 
ness in the field, he was compelled to leave the service. In 
search of health, he turned his face toward the West, reaching 
California in April, 1863. He bore with him a letter from the 
renowned Charles O'Conor to the Hon. Eugene Casserly. He 
formed a partnership with Mr. Casserly in August, 1863, which 
continued until Mr. Casserly's election to the United States 
Senate in 1869. 

With his forty years of life and labor in California you are 
all familiar. Such a man, distinguished in form and feature, 
with power and inclination to speak the hopes and loves and 
fears of the people, their aspirations and better purposes, must 
necessarily live in the open, in full view, and thus it was, and 
thus it has been, that the name and personality of General 
Barnes have been before the eyes of California for lo! these 
many years. His career and his splendid intellect remained 
cloudless to the end. 

His great powers as an advocate early placed and have kept 
him in the first rank. He met and contended with or against 
the giants of the bar, — with Sanderson, Wilson, and McAllis- 
ter, and with other of our great lawyers. He gave and 
received blows with manly courage, but left all heat and pas- 
sion in the forum. As a jury lawyer he was superb. He knew 



86 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

the human heart — all its hidden, secret recesses — and with 
master, almost wizard, hand played on all its strings. Before 
appellate tribunals he was powerful — all courtesy, all respect. 
His mind was full of learning — familiar with time-honored 
precedents and immortal principles — and with the skill of a 
master he built his arguments sure and strong, simple, yet 
beautiful as a Greek temple. 

Of his eminence — our judgment would say his preemi- 
nence — as an orator you will all bear witness. His fame is 
established. It will survive in memory and in written words. 
His style will serve as model for all who strive to utter pure, 
high thoughts in rich and splendid language. It is difficult to 
define oratory; it is perhaps impossible to state in what elo- 
quence consists; but if asked to define the one or analyze the 
other, I should say that in the noble and elevating efforts of 
General Barnes will be found the most satisfactory answer. 
Poet, thinker, artist, imaginative, he gave symmetry and 
beauty to his thoughts, and always directed the mind upward 
to the "bright and shining pathway of the stars." 

He loved his state and nation, and served them, as he be- 
lieved, by devoting his genius to the service of the party of 
Abraham Lincoln. And what splendid service that was! 
What a royal, high-crested champion he was ! And through 
all the eventful years — from Lincoln to McKinley — what a 
spell he threw on the hearts of the people of this common- 
wealth whenever great issues were at stake and wherever men 
gathered to consider the welfare of the republic ! 

In a larger arena, dealing with larger questions, he would 
have taken high rank among the leading statesmen of our 
country. Our love and admiration do not deceive us. He 
had the power — the breadth and depth and height of thought; 
he understood the structure of our government and of all gov- 
ernments; he had ability to plead great causes in high places, 
and he would have glorified California and been to her what 
Baker was and is to Oregon. He would have easily and 
quickly achieved national fame if he had been called to serve 
in national legislative halls — in the Senate, which has become 
more than was ever the Roman Senate of Cicero — the council- 
chamber of the world. 



EULOGY ON GENERAL BARNES. 87 

God forgive us — God pity us — when we deny laurel to the 
brow of the living and lay garlands on the tomb of the unre- 
plying dead. 

In the world of thought General Barnes walked and lived. 
His love for art — music, painting, sculpture — was genuine 
and sincere. 

His love for literature — heaven-born poetry and mighty 
prose — wherein the mirth and joy, the tragedy and toil, of the 
past move to gladness or provoke to tears — was a passion. 

His love for nature — for all the wondrous works of God — 
the sublime and beautiful — sierra and sea, flower and star — 
amounted to religious worship. 

His love for the Union, the nation — its hallowed and vic- 
torious flag — was unbounded, and in recounting his country's 
deeds of valor and sacrifice — her splendid achievements and 
multiform blessings — he rose to sublime heights of pure and 
enthralling eloquence. 

With all these qualities, these rich endowments, he had the 
pride and confidence of genius. 

" With voice and mien of stern control, 

He stood among the great and proud, 
And words of fire burst from his soul, 

Like lightnings from the tempest cloud ; 
His high and deathless themes were crowned 

With glory of his genius born, 
And gloom and ruin darkly frowned 

Where fell his bolts of wrath and scorn." 

Yet "out of the strong came forth sweetness." For there 
was never a more gentle, more loving, and more lovable man 
than he who sleeps beneath these weeping flowers. 

And so General Barnes, wit and scholar, lawyer and pa- 
triot, is dead — dead to us, but not to God. The star that has 
set below the horizon and is lost to our poor mortal sight will 
shine on and on in the celestial firmament, fadeless to eternity. 

It is time this unworthy but loving tribute were ended. 
The portals of the tomb swing open; heavenly voices bid him 
welcome, and the Almighty and Worshipful Master, enthroned 
in majesty unspeakable, says, " Come unto Me, and be at rest." 

Farewell, gentle heart and loyal Knight — 

" Farewell ! a word that must be, and hath been — 
A sound which makes us linger ; — yet — farewell." 



88 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 



WASHINGTON: LIBERTY UNDER LAW. 

[Address at the banquet of the California Society of the Sons of the 
American Revolution, celebrating the one hundred and sixty-ninth 
anniversary of the birth of Washington, February 22, 1901.] 

Mr. President and Gentlemen, — All the resources of lofty 
and loving eloquence have been exhausted in vain attempts to 
portray the rounded greatness and the genius for war and gov- 
ernment of the " Father of his Country." Oratory has paid 
its tribute to his civic virtues; poetry has laid its immortal 
wreath upon his brow; scholarship has sought to sound the 
depths of his practical wisdom; and patriotism has striven to 
express its admiration, its gratitude, and its love for the char- 
acter, the services, and the legacy of George Washington. 
[Applause.] 

His fame increases; it grows with the flight of years. A 
century has come and gone since he closed his eyes in eternal 
sleep; but he lives — lives in the government he founded, lives 
in the principles he enunciated, lives "first in the hearts of his 
countrymen," that beat with unutterable emotion at the men- 
tion of his sacred name. [Applause.] 

As military leader, history — the disinterested, the dispas- 
sionate, judgment of men — has fixed his place. Alexander, 
Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, Wellington — each has his cham- 
pions, some their idolaters; but, all things considered, — the 
times, the places, the circumstances, — the mighty opposing 
foe, the small resources, — difficulties overcome, dangers re- 
moved, victory achieved, — thus measured, Washington takes 
his rightful place at the very head of military genius, and 
there he will remain forever. 

I need not dwell on his military life and achievements. You 
know them by heart, — from Boston to Yorktown, — and I 
would hasten to consider Washington other than as a soldier. 
But, with our minds fixed for a moment on the tragedy and 
triumph of battle, there is one continuing fact which patriot- 



WASHINGTON: LIBERTY UNDER LAW. 89 

ism loves to mention, and may be pardoned for mentioning, at 
any time, on any occasion, and that glorious fact is, that the 
flag of our country, first lifted to heaven by Washington, has 
been carried in victory from the days of the Revolution to this 
very hour, — from Yorktown to Santiago, — never knowing de- 
feat, and blessing alike the victor and the vanquished. [Ap- 
plause.] 

Not only in the camp, but elsewhere, Washington wrought 
great deeds and made himself immortal. The battle fought, 
the victory won, independence acknowledged, the thirteen col- 
onies recognized as free, then came the greater task and the 
greater problem: the task of perpetuating liberty under law, — 
the problem of maintaining constitutional government. Vic- 
tory was ours, freedom was ours, but the colonies took their 
place among the nations of the earth under a form of govern- 
ment which gave promise of neither permanence nor security. 
Sir, it is easier to gain liberty than to maintain it; it is easier 
to win a battle than to found a state. To use the thoughtful 
and beautiful words of Charles Sumner, " Gaining liberty is 
not an end, but a means only, — a means of securing justice 
and happiness, — the real end and aim of states, as of every 
human heart." The thirteen colonies were in fact one people, 
and in their international relations one nation. But in other 
respects — in an interstate, constitutional sense — they were so 
many separate sovereignties. 

The Articles of Confederation, under which the colonists 
waged successful war when their indignation was roused and 
patriotism ran high, and there was generous rivalry as to 
which should perform the greatest service, make the greatest 
sacrifice, for the common cause, were soon found to be utterly 
inadequate in times of peace. These Articles of Confederation 
were born of imminent danger and pressing necessity for joint 
action. They were prepared by a committee of the Continen- 
tal Congress, then sitting in Philadelphia, and reported to that 
body on July 12, 1776. Amended and debated and tempo- 
rarily laid aside, it was not until November 15, 1777, that they 
were agreed to and thereupon transmitted to the legislatures 
of the states for ratification. One by one the several "free, 
sovereign, and independent states" formally ratified these 



90 SAMUEL M. SHOKTRIDGE. 

articles, and the cannon in the yard of Independence Hall an- 
nounced to the world the " glorious compact " on the first day 
of March, 1781. It was indeed a glorious compact, and glo- 
riously did our fathers triumph under it. 

The treaty of peace was signed at Paris on September 3, 
1783. The military duties of Washington were performed. 
His country was free. In New York, on December 4, 1783, he 
bade farewell to his officers and repaired to Annapolis, where 
Congress was then sitting, to return his commission as com- 
mander-in-chief. This he did on Tuesday, December 23d, and 
in so doing used these memorable words: "Having now fin- 
ished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theater of 
action, and bidding an affectionate farewell to this august 
body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer 
my commisson, and take my leave of all the employments of 
public life." 

Washington retired to his home at Mount Vernon, now a 
shrine to which his countrymen and lovers of liberty make 
pilgrimage, in the fond expectation of spending the remainder 
of his days in domestic tranquillity and peace. 

War brought liberty; victory was followed by peace; but 
liberty was not enough; peace was not enough. The condition 
of the country was deplorable. The nation had incurred an 
indebtedness of over forty millions of dollars, — a small sum 
now, a colossal amount then. The several states were largely 
indebted. Congress could not raise money by way of internal 
tax or by a tariff on imports. To borrow money was almost 
impossible; for how could Congress guarantee payment? The 
government's credit at home and abroad was ruined. Con- 
gress recommended, but could not enforce its recommenda- 
tions. The states quarreled; controversies over interstate 
trade sprang up; conflicting laws as to foreign commerce were 
enacted; and the discouraging and disheartening fact was that 
Congress confessedly was powerless to remedy these many and 
increasing evils. We had assumed international relations, but 
were unable to carry out our international obligations. We 
were fast forfeiting the respect of the world, as Congress was 
losing the respect of the people. The very limited delegation 
of powers to Congress did not include the elemental power of 



WASHINGTON: LIBERTY UNDER LAW. 91 

enacting laws of an essentially national character binding on 
all the states. The country was drifting, — nay, more, it was 
rushing into internecine strife. Were we a nation? Was the 
republic a success? 

A few thoughtful, observant men saw and realized and 
feared all this, and were brave and frank enough to express 
their views. It was at this critical period of our history, when 
self-government was rapidly falling into discredit and the 
young republic was heading toward disaster, that Washington 
rendered incalculable service to his country and to mankind. 
From his retirement at Mount Vernon he saw the danger. 
He saw that the precious fruits of the Revolutionary struggle 
were in peril, and that to save and perpetuate them there must 
be a change in the form of government. The confederation 
was called by him a "half-starved, limping government, 
always moving upon crutches and tottering at every step." 
"It is as clear to me as A B C," he said, "that an extension of 
Federal powers would make us one of the most happy, wealthy, 
respectable, and powerful nations that ever inhabited the ter- 
restrial globe. Without this, we shall soon be everything 
which is the direct reverse." 

Other great men shared in these views. Hamilton, Madi- 
son, Franklin, Pinckney, Monroe, — they recognized the situa- 
tion, they saw the distressing condition of affairs, and were 
active in directing and molding public opinion in the direction 
of a "more perfect union." I do not forget nor undervalue 
their great services, but I think it just to say that Washington 
led in the movement which happily resulted in the formation 
and ratification of the constitution under which we have lived 
a hundred years and become and are what the "Father of his 
Country" predicted, — "one of the most happy, wealthy, re- 
spectable, and powerful nations that ever inhabited the terres- 
trial globe." [Applause.] 

You are familiar with the steps taken to reform, recast, re- 
frame, the government. You recall that upon motion of 
Madison the Virginia assembly passed a resolution calling for 
a meeting of commissioners from all the states at Annapolis in 
September, 1786. You remember that this meeting, made up 
of commissioners from but five of the states, prepared an ad- 



92 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

dress urging the necessity and suggesting a method for forming 
a stronger and a better government. Nor will it be forgotten 
that this historic address was written by Hamilton. Public 
interest was awakened, the work of the Annapolis meeting was 
laid before the Congress, and that body passed a resolution 
calling for a convention "for the sole and express purpose of 
revising the Articles of Confederation." Such a convention 
assembled in Philadelphia on the 25th of May, 1787, and, 
judged by its work and its effect on liberty under law, it was 
the most important convention that ever met. It met to 
"revise" the Articles of Confederation, to repair a falling 
structure; but, with a practical wisdom which has elicited the 
admiration of the world, it erected a new fabric of government, 
— the constitution under which we live, and to which we owe 
whatever makes us proud of our country, or great or respected 
among the nations of the earth. 

However much the world may praise Washington for his 
military achievements, whatever of imperishable luster his 
genius shed upon our arms, he rendered a greater and more 
valuable service to liberty when, as presiding officer, he guided 
and controlled in large measure the deliberations of that con- 
vention. But for his conservative views and conciliating na- 
ture, but for the confidence the delegates had in his spotless 
integrity and self-denying patriotism, but for his calmness and 
coolness and patience, his proved devotion to his country, his 
practical wisdom, and his consequent influence over the minds 
and hearts of his associates, we now know that the convention 
would have dissolved in strife and broken up in quarrel, and 
that the attempt to form a "more perfect union" would have 
ended in lamentable failure. Debate was animated, interests 
clashed, jealousies existed, and rivalry contended, and all to 
such an extent that at times the convention was "scarce held 
together by the strength of a hair"; but through those four 
months of doubt and fear Washington sat, patient, forbearing, 
and by the very force of moral grandeur allayed passion and 
molded antagonisms into harmony. [Applause.] 

The convention over, the new constitution transmitted to 
the Continental Congress to be submitted to the several states 
for ratification, Washington returned to his beloved Mount 



WASHINGTON: LIBERTY UNDER LAW. 93 

Vernon, there to remain until again called to the service of 
his country. 

Do not for a moment suppose that all men believed in the 
new constitution. Elbridge Gerry, Edmund Randolph, and 
George Mason, members of the convention, had refused to ap- 
prove it, and twelve others had retired from the convention 
before its labors were finished. Violent opposition to it sprang 
up throughout the country. There was intense excitement, 
and supporters of the great charter of constitutional govern- 
ment felt the most anxious solicitude as to its fate. The in- 
strument was denounced as the "stepping-stone to tyranny," 
and as "consolidated tyranny," "inimical to the liberties of a 
free people." Chief among its opponents stood Patrick Henry, 
who, though elected a member, had refused to attend or parti- 
cipate in the work of the Philadelphia convention, — Patrick 
Henry, whose love of liberty was unbounded and unquestioned, 
whose genius had moved the house of burgesses to resistance, 
and whose lofty and fearless appeals had stirred their hearts 
as they move ours to-day, — he opposed the new constitution 
with all his power and all his might. Nor could he be recon- 
ciled, even by the express, if not authoritative, promise that 
immediately upon its ratification it should be radically 
amended. Everywhere the civic battle raged. Hamilton, 
Madison, Jay, Marshall, championed the new form of govern- 
ment. The storm gathered and centered in Virginia; upon 
her action turned the fate of the "more perfect union." Out 
from Mount Vernon went a mighty influence — the influence 
of Washington. For the first time, Virginia refused to follow 
Patrick Henry; the victory was won! 

How shall we express our gratitude to Washington? As 
without his genius our battle for independence would have 
probably been lost, as without his counsel the Philadelphia 
convention never would have agreed upon the constitution, so 
without his influence that great instrument of government, of 
liberty under law, never would have been ratified by the 
people. To him, more than to any other man, we owe the 
formation of our present Union; without him, there would 
have been no common country to live for or to die for; with- 
out him, the flag of our hearts and hopes, — your flag, my flag, 



94 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

the flag of Jackson, Scott, and Grant, of Dewey yonder at Ma- 
nila, of Shafter there at Santiago, — the flag of unnumbered 
heroes whose blood has sanctified it, —without Washington, the 
flag of this republic would not be known and respected on 
every wave, honored and saluted in every port, the symbol of 
our power, the emblem of liberty under law. [Applause.] 

The hearts of a grateful people again turned to Mount Ver- 
non, and Washington was unanimously chosen as their chief 
magistrate, with no crown save that of glory, with no scepter 
save that of law. 

Washington stood, and stands, for constitutional liberty, for 
regulated liberty, for liberty under " salutary restraint," for 
liberty under law. He stood, and stands, for regulated liberty 
under constitutional protections. He knew and taught that 
without these restraints, these checks, these safeguards, these 
balances, liberty degenerates into license worse than slavery, 
into anarchy worse than despotism. Against license with all 
its- suicidal tendencies he uttered his warning; against an- 
archy in all its frightful and hideous forms he voiced his 
protest. 

The nation's power and glory do not altogether depend upon 
the triumph of its arms; they rest upon the righteousness of 
its people and the quality of justice which it metes out to all 
men. The liberty for which Washington stood was the liberty 
of equality, — absolute equality of public burdens, absolute 
equality of public duties. He believed in a republic of law, a 
government of order, wherein and whereunder all men should 
be protected, and secure in "life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness." [Applause.] 

I do not forget that the great Declaration was fought for 
while men toiled in chains and bent beneath the lash; that 
the Philadelphia newspaper that gave the first impression of 
that immortal Declaration to the world contained an adver- 
tisement of one William Thomas for a lost or stolen slave! 
Upbraid the patriot fathers? Condemn Washington? Not for 
the hand I hold before you. He and his compatriots acted ac- 
cording to the light given them. They could not foresee; they 
could not foresee. It remained, in the providence of God, for 






WASHINGTON: LIBERTY UNDER LAW. 95 

Abraham Lincoln — blessed be his sacred name! — to make 
this nation a republic in fact as well as in theory. [Applause.] 

My friends, Washington and his compatriots were not 
mere theorists. They were practical men, who knew that 
the liberty they had achieved could only be secured by a 
government strong enough to protect every man entitled 
to its care. They strove to embody in constitutional form, 
and thereby perpetuate, the principles for which they had 
fought, and their work was one of lofty and disinterested 
patriotism, marked by concession and compromise. 

They, the men of New England and Georgia; they, the men 
of New York and Virginia, — Benjamin Franklin, Luther 
Martin, Rufus King, Robert Morris, and others whose names 
will occur to you, — were men who knew their rights, and, 
" knowing, dared maintain." They had been educated in the 
English common law, and were familiar with history and gov- 
ernment. And after a hundred years of trial, — years of stress 
and strain, of internal dangers and foreign menace, — how 
true it is to say, that they "builded better than they knew." 

I do not desire on this occasion to provoke argument or 
arouse antagonism in your minds; but as for one, in the midst 
of present dangers, beset by present difficulties, viewed by jeal- 
ous and envious European powers, — I, for one, believe in a 
strong national government, one that can and one that shall 
leap to the defense of the flag wherever it is raised, and protect 
the humblest American citizen wherever he may travel, even 
though he be in the uttermost parts of the uncivilized world. 
[Applause.] 

Whenever in the course of our history the hour of danger 
has come, an American breast or an American brain has been 
there to meet and to solve that danger. It was so in the dark 
days of the Revolution; it was so in the War of 1812; it was 
so in the Mexican War; it was so in the unhappy strife be- 
tween the states in the Civil War; and it was gloriously so in 
our late war with Spain, when Dewey in Manila and Shafter 
in Cuba lifted again the flag of Washington, — the flag which 
throughout all our history has stood, and now stands, not for 
license, not for anarchy, not for impotency, but for constitu- 
tional liberty under law. 



96 SAMUEL M. SHORTRIDGE. 

A hundred years have passed since Washington died. ' ' The 
hero, the patriot, and the sage of America, the man on whom 
in times of danger every eye was turned and all hopes placed, 
lives now only in his own great actions." This was true when 
uttered by the immortal John Marshall; it is true to-night, 
when the United States looks into and salutes the twentieth 
century without a blush and without a fear. [Applause.] 



1 



, 



GEOBGE A. KNIGHT. 

George Alexander Knight was born July 24, 1851, at Worcester, 
Massachusetts, and received his education at the high school and Oakland 
College, Oakland, California. He was elected district attorney of Hum- 
boldt County, California, for three terms ; was nominated for Congress 
in 1880, on the Republican ticket, in the first California district; was 
appointed state insurance commissioner by Governor George C. Perkins ; 
was judge advocate on the staff of Governor H. H. Markham ; and is at 
present attorney for the state board of health by appointment of Gov- 
ernor Henry T. Gage. In 1896 Mr. Knight was chairman of the Re- 
publican state convention which met at Sacramento and nominated 
M. M. Estee for governor. He was a delegate to the Republican na- 
tional conventions of 1884, 1892, 1896, and 1900. 

In early life, Mr. Knight attained prominence as a criminal lawyer. 
He won much fame in San Francisco in 1882 for his defense of Josh 
Hamblin, charged with the murder of John Massey. Hamblin had 
been convicted of murder in the first degree, but was granted a new 
trial. Meantime his attorney had died, and Judge Twohy appointed 
Mr. Knight to defend him on his next hearing. In this case Mr. 
Knight, then just winning his oratorical spurs, was pitted against the 
redoubtable Henry Edgerton. After a notable succession of court 
battles, Mr. Knight's eloquence saved his client's life and secured for 
him a light sentence. As the case was the cause celebre of its time, and 
as Henry Edgerton' s fame as a lawyer and orator was general, the 
outcome of the case gave Mr. Knight a state-wide reputation. He has 
always considered his address on the final trial of the Hamblin case his 
greatest legal forensic effort. 

Another defense which added to his reputation as a lawyer was that 
of Dr. Lewelling Powell for killing Ralph Smith, editor of the San 
Mateo Gazette, at Redwood City. There were five trials of this case, 
and an acquittal was at last secured. In the case on appeal, it was de- 
cided that the statute authorizing a change of venue to the people was 
unconstitutional. 

At this date Mr. Knight is attorney for Cordelia Botkin, charged with 
murder, in poisoning two women at Dover, Delaware. Already he has 
secured for her a new trial, and the case involves several important 
questions never before adjudicated in California. 

In later years Mr. Knight has devoted most of his attention to civil 
business. He took part in the litigation over the great estate of Thomas 
Blythe. The contest of the will of Jacob Z. Davis was one of his later 

97 



98 GEORGE A. KNIGHT. 

cases, and he was attorney for Charles L. Fair in his successful contest 
of the will of his father, United States Senator James G. Fair. 

Mr. Knight has been on the stump in every state and national cam- 
paign since 1879. In 1882 he made a strong anti-Chinese speech to a 
large open-air mass-meeting gathered about the steps of the Nevada 
Bank at Pine and Montgomery streets. He was the orator selected to 
pronounce the eulogy of the assassinated President James A. Garfield 
at the public exercises held in the Mechanics' Pavilion. 

But it is in national politics that Mr. Knight has won his greatest 
fame as an orator, and of all California's speakers none is more widely 
known. 

Mr. Knight's national fame was won in 1884. California had sent on 
to the Republican national convention a rousing enthusiastic delega- 
tion in favor of James G. Blaine for President. The Mugwumps, led by 
George William Curtis, the great editor of Harper's Weekly, intended to 
bolt if Blaine were nominated. Hundreds of copies of the Curtis 
weekly had been circulated in the convention, and the publication cari- 
catured and lampooned the man from Maine, who was California's idol. 
In face of the fact that New York, led by the venerable and impos- 
ing Curtis, was sure to bolt if Blaine defeated President Arthur for the 
nomination, Hawley of Tennessee offered a resolution pledging all the 
delegates to stand by the convention nominee, whoever he might be. 
This appealed to Mr. Knight, and he expressed his determination to 
speak in favor of the resolution. W. W. Morrow, Frank M. Pixley, 
Thomas R. Bard, and others of the California delegation, tried to dis- 
suade him, urging placatory measures. But Knight insisted, and in his 
speech in favor of the resolution won his place as one of the foremost 
orators of America. The incident and the address were thus described 
by Wells Drury, the widely known newspaper-man, who was a corre- 
spondent there : — 

" George A. Knight of California followed the convention's custom, 
and got upon a chair when he rose to poke the ribs of George William 
Curtis, the best-known and most distinguished member of the conven- 
tion, who was threatening to bolt if the convention refused to nominate 
his man, Arthur. It seemed to me at that moment that Knight was the 
handsomest and most eloquent man I had ever seen or heard. He will 
never improve on that speech if he lives to be a hundred. It was worth 
half a lifetime just to witness that scene. It was the climax of the con- 
vention. 

"The excitement was greater than at any other time, — suppressed, 
but terribly, painfully, dangerously intense. That speech made the 
nomination of Blaine imperative. It showed his friends could not turn 
back at the supercilious behest of a handful of Mugwumps, who were 
willing enough to join in the game so long as they could rule, but who 
were threatening ruin if their slightest wishes were disregarded. This, 
Knight said, was not American ; it was not honorable. He called 
on such delegates to announce their fealty to the decision of the major- 



SPEECH AT McKINLEY'S NOMINATION. 99 

ity of the convention, as had been done ever since the signing of the 
Declaration of Independence, or to take themselves and their disrepu- 
table ideas to a more congenial companionship. That speech was never 
properly reported. It could not be reported as it was delivered. Words 
may be jotted down, but inflections, tones, gestures, lightning glances, 
the electric communion between the speaker and his auditors, can never 
be recorded. Even with the latest and greatest inventions at command, 
the inspiration of the moment, the mastering passions of a great audi- 
ence, must be lacking. 

"Every sentence, almost every word, received deafening applause, 
and the tumult was beyond control. Knight had struck the key-note. 
His speech was neither too short nor too long. It was a clean-cut gem, 
worthy of Demosthenes or Patrick Henry. A more impassioned appeal 
never burst from the lips of a man. It rushed forth like an irresistible 
stream. 

"The word has been spoken ! 

"That was the whisper and that the feeling in everybody's heart. 
The popular pulse had been touched by a master hand, but nobody 
seemed to know the magician. Who is he? was the impatient question 

I on all sides. 

"That morning George A. Knight walked into the convention obscure 
and unheard of. Before evening his name was on the lips of sixty mil- 

; lions of people, and a nation read his words with ringing approbation. " 
Curtis made a good reply, but it was unavailing. There were some 
demonstrations of approval, but there was no enthusiasm. It was clear 
that New York intended to bolt if Blaine received the nomination. 
This was discouraging, but the delegates were in no mood to think 
patiently or calmly on such a subject after Knight's great speech. 
They nominated Blaine. 

Whitelaw Keid was on the platform at the time the speech was made, 
and after the New York Tribune, then the great national organ of the 

' Republican party, had eulogized Knight and his address in a half- 
column editorial, even those who had criticised him when he declared 
his intention to support the Hawley resolution admitted that he was 

I right. He went on with the Pacific Coast delegation to Augusta, Maine, 
and there delivered a notable address in the presence of Blaine and the 
venerable Hannibal Hamlin, who was Vice-President in Lincoln's first 
term. 

The Republican national committee recognized Mr. Knight's oratori- 
cal ability by specially inviting him to go upon the stump during the 
campaign, and ever since then he has been a recognized figure in the 
councils and conventions of the Republican party. 

In the Philadelphia national convention of 1900 he was called upon 

j to second the renomination of President William McKinley, and there 

| he scored another oratorical triumph. Of this event Edward H. Ham- 
ilton, correspondent of the San Francisco Examiner (Democratic), has 

I said : — 



100 GEOEGE A. KNIGHT. 

' ' It was the oratorical triumph of an occasion when the big and popu- 
lar men of the party were competing in the lists. Foraker, Eoosevelt, 
Wolcott, Lodge, Depew, Thurston, and the rest had been on the plat- 
form, but that evening everybody talked of Knight of California. In 
the first place, the voice of 'the Silver Trumpet,' as they called 
Knight in 1884, was the only one equal to the exigencies of the great 
auditorium and the immense throng. People in the back rows — thou- 
sands of them — had been for three days looking at the platform per- 
formance as if it were a pantomime or a show of marionettes. They 
suddenly heard a human voice break in among them. They hushed 
their hubbub as if by magic. Here was a speaker who could compel 
attention. And once Knight caught them, he held them. He pio- 
neered the way out of the beaten tracks of declamation. He left the 
dread and drear domain occupied by 'the Grand Old Party,' our great 
leader, four years ago, and carried his hearers into a breezy realm of 
oratory where there were no dry leaves and sweepings of language. As 
a consequence, he won the reward of the heartiest applause and the 
most general popularity accorded any speaker. Shouts of laughter 
alternated with the wild roars of approval which tell that an orator has 
carried his listeners into a sort of ecstasy. Hanna's face wore a pleased 
smile, and Foraker, who sat beside him, nodded approvingly as the 
big Calif ornian went on winning his way. Odell, in the New York 
delegation, sat in pop-eyed appreciation. Quay leaned out in the aisle 
from his seat at the head of the Pennsylvania delegation and enthusi- 
astically joined in the hand-clapping. Chauncey M. Depew sat with his 
mouth open, drinking in the tumultuous oratorical flood, and Chairman 
Henry Cabot Lodge lay back in complete relief that at last the generally 
restive throng was all attention. 

' ' On the cars and omnibuses going home the name of Knight was 
taken approvingly by every tongue. The hotel lobbies were ringing 
with his fame. He had won his triumph, and the great men of the 
land were quick and eager to do him honor." 

The great address, made at the personal request of President McKin- 
ley, and reported in the official volume of proceedings of the convention, 
was as follows : — 

SPEECH AT McKINLEY'S NOMINATION. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention, — If 
my memory serves me right, this is a Californian anniversary; 
and Philadelphia was chosen as the place for holding this 
Republican convention and naming its nominees. Forty-four 
years ago, the Republican party met in national convention 
here and nominated a ticket for which it asked the support of 
the loyal, liberty-loving citizens of the Union. On that ticket, 



SPEECH AT McKIXLEY'S NOMINATION. 101 

as the Republican party's nominee for President, was John C. 
Fremont, the " Pathfinder of the Pacific," — the man who 
showed the way to the state from which I come. He crossed 
the level plains, he climbed the mountains of rock, and he 
viewed the promised land, California, — God bless her, — with 
a climate soft as a mother's smile; with a soil fruitful as God's 
love; an Eden in herself; broad enough for an empire: and 
yet the Democrats did not want her as a part of this great 
national union. 

California came into the Union a free state, heralding the 
idea that no man under the shadow of our flag, no matter 
what his color might be, should be a slave. Believing as Cali- 
fornia did in the inalienable rights of man and his just claim 
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; firmly convinced 
as California was of Washington's idea of protection; advocat- 
ing Jefferson's broad views of imperialism, — California's ad- 
mission into the Union was significant of progress, and im- 
portant in its bearing on the efforts to make that progress 
lasting. Had she come in as a slave state, the reign of the 
party that had been dominant for fifty-five years would have 
been continued and the destiny of our republic would have 
been rendered problematical. 

California elected John C. Fremont one of her first United 
States Senators, and sent him on to Washington as a pledge of 
faith that California was true to those fundamental principles 
that have made us the greatest nation on the face of the earth. 
Therefore, as a Calif ornian, I rejoice with you to-day, and with 
the Republican party in all the land, when you commemorate 
the nomination of the Californian who carried the banner of 
Republicanism in its earliest days and in its sorest trial. The 
time is not opportune for me to talk of the Republican party 
and its work. I will not undertake so great a task. It has 
written the history of this government for the past thirty-five 
years, and it has written so that every school child may read 
that history with patriotic pride. There is not a principle 
advocated by the party since '61 that has not been incorporated 
in statutory or organic law, fixed and crystallized there for the 
bettering of the people. The nation's great men of the past 
thirty-five years have walked under the banner of Republican- 



102 GEORGE A. KNIGHT. 

ism and voted our national ticket, to the end that our civiliza- 
tion might be advanced and our Union strengthened. But 
proud, proud as we are of our history, we now turn to teach 
our children geography. The text-book of two years ago can- 
not guide the young mind of to-day, on account of the ad- 
vances of this nation under the guidance of the Republican 
party. We have changed the map, and the country's flag 
now floats under skies it never knew before. In California 
we know what expansion means. In California we want this 
great and liberal nation to be equal to the present occasion. 
Happy circumstances shook the world's great dice-box, — 
opportunity, — and we won in the throw. The prizes are not the 
dream-gifts of the sky, but the riches of the ocean. Hawaii 
and the Philippine Archipelago, fresh from the creation of the 
wave, were added to our domain. The king of commerce has 
tapped us on the shoulder, saying, "I am coming to the fair 
Pacific to make my seaside home." So California welcomes 
the king of commerce. She is glad that conquest prepared 
the way for his peaceful feet. In California we know, too, 
what anti-expansion means. Had the advocates of that doc- 
trine had their way, my state never would have been admitted 
into the Union. Opposition most strong to the acquisition of 
California was made by Senator Corwin of Ohio in the United 
States Senate in 1847. By all the gifts of oratory and the 
persuasion of speech he sought to influence our government, 
in and after the war with Mexico, to withdraw from the con- 
test, and then not to claim California as a necessary part of 
this nation's territory. In an emphatic, scholarly, well-pre- 
pared speech, Senator Corwin combated the idea of ever pur- 
chasing California, and based his opposition upon the ground 
that it was too far off to be practical, and that it was unjust 
and indecent to take from a weaker nation. His address reads 
like the mouthings of the anti-expansionists of to-day. 

We had an advocate in the Senator from Michigan, who told 
of the unknown country, California, and incidentally men- 
tioned that he had been told that San Francisco Bay was one 
of the finest harbors in the world, and that we ought to have 
it. He predicted that some day the United States would grow 
out to the Pacific, and advised that, as a matter of precaution, 



SPEECH AT McKINLEY'S NOMINATION. 103 

California be retained as a part of our possessions. In reply, 
Senator Corwin struck at the argument in favor of securing 
San Francisco Bay by saying, "The Senator from Michigan 
says it is the finest bay in the world, and we ought to have it. 
Why, gentlemen, it is like a horse-thief saying that the reason 
he stole the horse was because it was the best one he could 
find." 

So, gentlemen of the convention, you see that California has 
gone all through this fight over expansion; and had the anti- 
expansionists of 1847 had their way, one of the greatest states 
in our glorious Union would not have set its star in the blue 
field of the nation's flag. I believe it often has been said that 
our forefathers build ed better than they knew. I say, no; they 
knew better than they had an opportunity of building in their 
daj T and in their time. They had the history of the past to 
guide them. They had the memory of oppression and tyranny 
that brought them to these shores; they knew the mistakes 
of the governments of the Old World; and the}' tried to use 
that history and that memory, and to take advantage of those 
mistakes, to avert and avoid them, in the building of a new 
and noble nation. One thing was stamped upon their hearts 
and their minds, — freedom for all, and equal rights before the 
law. And that, from the day of Fremont's nomination in 
Philadelphia, has been one of the cardinal principles of the 
Republican party. Let me tell you, fellow-citizens, the Re- 
publican party has made no mistakes in its political life. We 
have taken up the pen and written into the Constitution of the 
United States language so simple, so noble, so musical, so just, 
and so freighted with good for all mankind, that the words 
seem to belong to the original draft, — they seem to have come 
from the pen that wrote the original Constitution. 

And now we all know what the Democratic party is; we all 
know what the Democratic party was; we all know what the 
Democratic party will be until the crack o' doom. If in the 
House of Parliament the same speeches were made, the same 
sentiments were expressed, as William J. Bryan makes and 
expresses under the shadow and protection of our flag, there is 
not a man, woman, or child in all the broad domain who 
would not be willing to declare war against England at once. 



104 GEORGE A. KNIGHT. 

Put into the mouth of the representative of any foreign power 
the sayings of Mr. Bryan, — let our army be attacked, let our 
institutions be ridiculed, let our work be degraded in the eyes 
of the world, by any save one of our own people, — and war 
would come. Yet if what Mr. Bryan says about our policy be 
true, if what he says in criticism of our institutions be just, 
it would be right if all the civilized world should rise up in 
accord with him. The Democratic party has always put the 
arm of labor in a sling; the Democratic party has blackened 
the eye of commerce; the Democratic party has crushed the 
foot of progress; the Democratic party has put Uncle Sam to 
bed every time it has had anything to do with the government; 
and it seeks alliance with the vicious and the outcasts of other 
lands, who do not dare retain an abiding-place under their 
own flags. That is the indictment against the Democratic 
party. The Democrats are going to have a convention in 
Kansas City on the Fourth of July. I wonder why the Fourth 
of July was chosen? The Fourth of July! Do you remember 
when — 

" Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lowered, 
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky, 
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered, 
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die"? 

Among the soldiers who slept on those stricken fields was 
William McKinley. Under the stars of heaven, he slept with 
his heart on the flag. I know of no Democrat who has such a 
record. From '61 to '65 the Democrats kept no national anni- 
versaries, but now they dare hold their convention on the day 
of the nation's birth, — the day of all days the Democratic 
party should avoid. 

I am glad that my friend Roosevelt has said that the 
Spanish- American War was not a great war. In a limited 
sense I agree with him. All the smoke of the Spanish-Ameri- 
can War was nothing as incense to the God of battles com- 
pared with that which arose from the battle-fields of Shiloh, 
Antietam, Gettysburg, and the Wilderness; and the now silent 
heroes who fought those battles that the nation might live are 
entitled at this hour and this time to the praise and remem- 



SPEECH AT McKINLEY'S NOMINATION. 105 

brance of a grateful convention. Had it not been for Lincoln, 
we should have made no nomination for President of the 
United States to-day. Had it not been for Grant, we should 
have had no army to win the victory of San Juan Hill. Far- 
ragut, lashed in the rigging of the old Hartford, his gray locks 
waving defiance to death and danger, made Dewey a possi- 
bility. 

And so, while we give all credit and all honor to those who 
successfully conducted our recent war in foreign lands, we 
must not forget those who made possible that war's success. 
But we will not take any honor from the brave men who 
brought us territory out of the late war. No grander achieve- 
ment ever was chronicled in the histor}^ of our country than 
the acquisition of the islands in the Pacific. We need them 
commercially; we need them politically; we need them in 
every way that a nation may need a territory. The dismem- 
berment of China is sure to come. The feverish conditions of 
the Orient are apparent to every one; and to-day, were it not 
that we own the Philippines, we should have to send our sol- 
diers across thousands of miles of ocean to protect the lives of 
the representatives of our flag. We need those islands as a 
great depot in the Pacific for the distribution of the output of 
our inventive genius and our industrial hand. 

We of California are proud that it was our boys who were 
the first to carry the flag on to foreign shores, and we know 
that when in their hearts they felt that this nation would ap- 
prove of their acts, they were not doomed to disappointment. 
Some of them are over there yet, and will never come back. 
Near the restless sea, amid the spices and perfumes of the 
tropical land, Columbia, fair Columbia, sighing for her dead, 
is guarding their hammocks as they swing in peaceful and 
eternal content. I think we shall keep the Philippines! 

And now a word for California, the regnant queen. We 
built the flag-ship upon which Dewey stood under the Stars 
and Stripes in Manila Bay. We built the Monterey, and sent 
her out to do the bidding of the great commander of the fleet 
to which she had been assigned. We built the Oregon, and 
sent her with our flag on the greatest and grandest journey in 
all the annals of naval achievement. The civilized world 



106 GEORGE A. KNIGHT. 

stood in wonder at the perfection of these fighting-machines of 
the wave. We of California well knew the master who laid 
their keels and the workmen who wrought their ribs of steel, 
and we were entirely assured of their success when they started 
out in defense of the national honor and for the upholding of 
our convictions of right. 

And now, in closing, I will say that the embodiment of all 
the principles of the Republican party I find in William 
McKinley, — a statesman unexcelled, a soldier of renown, and 
a citizen whose hearthstone and home are examples to all. 
He is not only beloved at home, but stands before all the na- 
tions of the earth as one of the greatest and best rulers that 
ever graced the Presidential chair of the United States. No- 
vember will soon be here. There will be no doubt as to the 
result. The ballots are now cast and counted in the minds 
and hearts of the American people, and four years more of 
respect for law, respect for the flag, hope and faith in the per- 
petuity of American institutions, and of honor to the name of 
William McKinley, will follow the nomination of this conven- 
tion to-day. 






I 



HON. WILLIAM A. CHENEY. 

William Atwell Cheney was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 
year 1848, and after receiving an academic education, left his native 
state for California in 1868. Mr. Cheney was elected judge of the 
county court of Plumas County in 1878, and was sent to the senate of 
the state from the district of Butte, Plumas, and Lassen counties in 
1880 ; he served as state senator for three sessions. During that period 
he formed a partnership with Hon. Creed Haymond, and in 1882 moved 
to Los Angeles. He was elected judge of the superior court of Los An- 
geles County in 1884, and served in that position until 1891. He is now 
engaged in the practice of law at Los Angeles. Judge Cheney has writ- 
ten many excellent poems, and is a brilliant conversationalist. He has 
always stood in the front rank as an orator. 

AMERICA. 

[Delivered at Los Angeles, California, July 4, 1901.] 

Ladies and Gentlemen, — My heart is yet in my throat, 
after that last burning, patriotic song, and it is difficult to be- 
gin. If my memory serves me rightly, it has been about a 
decade since I permitted myself to yield to the seductiveness 
of an invitation to give a Fourth of July oration. I have 
thought the younger men of the community should be allowed 
to take this responsibility from the shoulders of us older ones, 
but I have consented this year. 

One night this week I read an editorial in an evening paper, 
which decried the usual dreariness of orations upon these oc- 
casions, and regretted the fact that the Philadelphians had 
not, as at first planned, urged Minister Wu, of the " fire- 
cracker kingdom," to deliver the oration of the day in their 
city, because orators always say the same things on these na- 
tional birthday occasions. 

Well, I had a beautiful speech prepared before I read that 
editorial, but after that, it was all gone; its beauty, if it really 
had any, marred by the consciousness that it but repeated the 

107 



108 HON. WILLIAM A. CHENEY. 

old things which have been familiar to us all ever since we can 
remember. The editorial was in full sympathy with the ex- 
pressions of popular opinion as I had heard them many times, 
and I was troubled. The editorial statements were evidently 
truthful; but how far were they so? Forthwith I began a 
search for the new, — a new liberty, a new patriotism, — but, 
alas! all that I found was old, old, old. 

I walked around Liberty to find something new, but it was 
the same old thing; the same that had been flung bleeding 
and battered against the reddened pavements of Paris many 
times, but never destroyed; the same that Moses, in the ancient 
days, begged for his people from the hardened Pharaoh, that 
has an unsettled account in the nethermost hell with Nero, 
which waits for an equation with the modern Turk, and which 
turned its determined face westward to the rocky shores of 
New England under the swelling sails of the Mayflower. 

There is nothing new about Liberty; with all our modern 
improvements in its garments, it has not changed. 

Oh, that the goddess would touch my lips, that I might this 
day tell the old, old story in a new, new way! 

As my halting tongue struggles to so begin the ancient tale, 
my thoughts for the moment refuse to be marshaled, while I 
wonder if things have come to that pass in this country, that 
American hearts will only respond to, and American patriotism 
be kept alive by, the representative, however eloquent, how- 
ever noble, of a heathen, despotic empire! 

Perhaps we must admit with reluctance that in these mod- 
ern days the muses of poetry and art sweep in vain their de- 
spairing wings in search of transcendent genius, and that the 
rumble of wheels, the clatter of machinery, the hideous win- 
dowed metropolitan monuments of steel, and the lowering 
clouds of smoke, tell us we live in the age of iron; but has the 
iron entered our souls? Is it true that all sentiment is dead? 
Are we wearied with the old stories? Is it no longer a living 
truth that "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"? Shall 
we admit this day that the telling of the story of the birth- 
pangs of our country no longer thrills us? Are we so dead 
that our hearts do not stir within us at the story of Paul 
Revere's ride, — of how, when, from the tower of the Old North 



AMERICA. 109 

Church, the first light of liberty for the United Colonies sent 
its quivering finger across the waters of the Charles River, the 
waiting patriot sprang to his saddle, — of how he plunged 
through the darkening night to raise the cry, "To arms! to 
arms!" while upon the country lanes and over the wooden 
bridge at Concord his horse's hoof-beats clattered madly, 
"Liberty, liberty, liberty"? 

»Are we weary when we hear of the kneeling patriots behind 
the redoubt at Bunker Hill, — of how they waited to see the 
whites of the eyes of the charging foe, and of how the long line 
of flint-locks belched in a stream of fire one fierce cry of "Lib- 
erty"? 

Are we calloused to the tale of the crossing of the Delaware? 
Do the drifting snow, the bitter frost, the gaunt starvation at 
Valley Forge, and the infinite patience of the patriotic Wash- 
ington arouse no response within us? 

All these are old, old, old! Are we dead to them? Do not 
let your reason speak: give way, give way to that thrill which 
is bubbling within you; let it have its sway; let it travel up 
the spinal column and crawl over your scalp; you need it; it 
will do you good. 

Patriotism is not reason; it is sentiment, — not of the mew- 
ling, mawkish, gushing character, but ennobling, elevating, in- 
spiring! 

If a foe lands upon our shores, we do not stop to reason 
about it. We go; we fight; we die, if need be! Patriotism is 
not reason; it is sentiment. 

This is, then, a day of sentiment, set apart that we may give 
free, untrammeled utterance to it. 

All the great things of the world which have lifted humanity 
and pushed it on toward a fuller, grander life are old, are 
hoary with age, and the eyes with which we look at them are 
those of sentiment, not of reason. The Cross is old, and yet 
unnumbered millions turn their tear- veiled eyes to it for help; 
human rights are old, yet we cling to them even till our names 
are numbered with the dead; love is old, yet every glade and 
dell, every leafy bower, every glistening star of night, has 
heard its old, old story from ancient days, and will till Time 
shall be no more; the history of our native land is old, of ne- 



HO HON. WILLIAM A. CHENEY. 

cessity old, and each day older, yet the new is builded upon 
it; it holds on its Atlas shoulders all that is dear to us. Fel- 
low-citizens, brothers, here is Liberty, old, battered, and 
scarred, but with the same fire as of yore in the heart, and the 
same unyielding demand for the unconditional surrender of 
Tyranny. Let us not this day weary of its ancient stories. 

Here is the Flag! It is the same old Flag. I could find 
nothing new about it, save the added stars, which increase its 
glory. To raise it over any church, or school, or party, is not 
to say, "This is the church, this is the school, this is the party 
of the flag." It has no church, no school, no party; it stands 
for principle, and is the people's. 'T is your flag; 'tis mine; 
'tis the people's! It limits its representation to no condition, 
to no wealth, to no poverty, to no position. It liketh not the 
caressing touch of bejeweled fingers more than the fevered 
grasp of the worn and wearied wanderer in the wastes of want 
and distress. 'Tis your flag; 'tis mine; 'tis the people's! Its 
sinuous folds weave in and out to fit the rights and wrongs of 
every son of Liberty; raise it over the rolling drums, and its 
beckoning undulations cause the mountains, valleys, forests, 
aye, the very deserts, to give forth their men and women, re- 
gardless of creed, or sect, or school, or cult; these things drop 
from them, at the call of the Flag, as forgotten burdens. Its 
fabric is as transparent as the meshes of a net to the soulless, 
unscrupulous plutocrat, or the ambitious, blatant demagogue, 
who endeavors to hide behind its folds! 'Tis your flag; 'tis 
mine; 'tis the people's! No political hypocrite, no satanic 
anarchist, may stand behind its waving stripes and recite his 
creed or repose in safety. 

It is the same old flag that fluttered over our ancestors be- 
hind the stone walls of New England and amid the rail fences 
of Virginia. It is old; it never changes; it never smiled on 
oppression, nor waved over a subject people. It stands for co- 
herent democracy. If over the hilltops of glory we should see 
its shade fluttering amid the standards of Turkey, Russia, and 
China, it would mean no less, no more, than now; it would be 
the same old flag. 

I have seen it on the ocean, rising from the horizon, mock- 
ing the swelling waves with its weaving folds, playing in its 



AMERICA. HI 

beauteous stripes with the darting streamers of the morning 
sun, and I knew that sons of Liberty were near me, on the 
deep! And I have seen it in foreign lands, when, lone, home- 
sick, and weary, with my heart in my throat, as I wandered in 
the narrow streets of a foreign city, strange tongues about me, 
stranger customs, and still stranger hearts, it would lift its 
silken folds from some obscure corner and say to me, with its 

I saving stripes and stars, "Liberty has its watchmen every- 
where." 
The suggestion that we give way to the sentiment of patriot- 
sm on this day does not reach so far as to call for a foolish 
,nd profitless gloating over the victories which were won by 
►ur forefathers from the troops of a particular nation, but 
ather for rejoicing because of the wonderful and far-reaching 
esults of those victories. When the patriot soldiers and 
statesmen of the eighteenth century lifted the people of the 
United Colonies of America, they elevated the citizens of Eng- 
land to just the same degree. The Declaration of Indepen- 
dence was the gospel not only of America, but also of the Brit- 
ish Isles. It was not of so much importance to our ancestors 
what they wrested from Mother England as what they grasped 
from the raw material of humanity and melted into ingots of 
golden rights and principles to pass current in all ages in en- 
lightened lands. 

The independence of the United States of America, as a mere 
event, would be but a petty factor in the evolution of human- 
ity or of human government. Its preaching and living the 
gospel of freedom, of individualism, and of government by the 
people, have been and will be giant forces in the overturning 
of tyranny, the prevention of cruelty, the development of the 
individual, and in anchoring fast the foundations of personal 
rights. A great philosopher has warned us to beware when a 
thinker is turned loose upon the earth. The last hand which 
signed that old and wearisome document, the Declaration of 
Independence, turned three millions loose, and the world of 
absolute government has been wary ever since. 

Why? Because it was the proclamation of the unloosing of 
tongues, the invigoration of stammering voices, the unshackel- 
ing of souls, and the enfranchisement of free thought. 



112 HON. WILLIAM A. CHENEY. 

I have said that there is nothing new about Liberty, and I 
repeat that assertion; but the opportunity for the expression of 
Liberty is new, — as new as the eighteenth century. Thought 
is of little value to the world unless it be executive, except it 
be expressed. There has always been liberty to think; for the 
secret, hidden operations of the mind were beyond torch 
or torture. The world thought, but it did not speak! Men's 
tongues were tied from time immemorial; before and since 
the prophets were stoned; not even in imperial Rome, nor 
in ancient Egypt, were they loosened; not in classic Greece, 
where was judicially murdered that greatest of human teachers, 
Socrates. 

Intellect grows with expression; it creates, expands, and 
marks the tide-lands of earth with its giant footprints. If the 
dawn of Christianity prepared the way for a rebirth of soul, 
the American Revolution blazed a path for the incarnation of 
the intellect. Not a particular type of intellect was it to be, 
but one freely and fully adapting itself to its immediate en- 
vironment. Each nation has its place and purpose, its distin- 
guishing characteristics, its own intellectual tendencies, and 
the law of individuality is as applicable to it as to the per- 
sonal man. A great instructor, a professor in one of our 
leading universities, makes a mistake in asserting that 
American intellect is declining; that the best things of intel- 
lectual attainment are coming from Europe. His mistake lies 
in the fact that he measures intellect by what he thinks it 
ought to be, along certain lines, and in doing so forgets that 
American intellect is American, not European. 

All new peoples are composite; they are blends; into them 
go all the selected capacities of the past. We are a composite 
people, and within us is the entire heritage of the ancient 
days, which, of necessity, includes all the powers, forces, capa- 
bilities, and appreciative possibilities which have been evolved 
and developed in every land of Europe. 

Our intellect is American; it has ability to appreciate all 
the good things of all the rest of the world, and to add thereto 
its own wonderful productions. 

What if we do not produce great poets? It will be conceded 
that Homer, Virgil, Sappho, Shelley, Shakespeare, and Byron 
find as responsive minds in America as in Europe. 



AMERICA. 113 

Grant that no marvelous composers have found their birth- 
place among us; yet who will deny that Mozart, Beethoven, 
Handel, Haydn, and Wagner fill the American soul with in- 
terpretations of their harmonies as uplifting, ennobling, and 
thrilling as those which stir the European heart? 

These things are for our pastime; our dreams are for our 
resting hours; but for the active day we move a combination 
of energies which stir the world. The blend of man and the 
blend of intellect move ever westward with the star of empire! 
Every nation, every people, stands for something which is its 
own individual property and birthright. 

Lovely, smiling Greece; martial, powerful Rome; mysteri- 
ous Egypt; philosophic India; scholastic Germany; artistic 
France; melodious Italy; and sturdy, constitutional England, 
— each has played its part, and its achievements, as builded 
into the intellect of man, have swept ever westward, and are 
ours. 

They can produce nothing which is not ours, nor shall we 
fail of intellectual sufficiency to appreciate to the uttermost. 

The industrial achievements of American intellect speak for 
themselves, and the dizzy height to which they have lifted the 
standard of the nation among the flags of the world is known 
of all men. 

An American is not a musician; he is a connoisseur of har- 
mony and melody. He is not an artist; he is a critic of art. 
He is not a scientist; he is an embodiment of science. He is 
not a poet, but he pauses in his giant tasks to listen with 
kindling heart to the song. 

American intellect has its own peculiar productive capacity, 
and a full capability of appreciation of all that other nations 
have created. 

It is the inventive intellect of the world! I will restrain 
myself, and not indulge in a dramatic call of the roll of the 
great inventors whose genius has rooted, ripened, and fruited 
on American soil. I content myself with asserting that the 
mighty forces to whose pull and push the world owes its mar- 
velous onward movement in the nineteenth century would 
never have been harnessed but by the energy of American in- 
tellect. 



114 HON. WILLIAM A. CHENEY. 

It is the executive intellect of the earth! It is not conserva- 
tive, but progressive; it is the activity of the conscious, rather 
than of the sub-conscious mind; it is the practical, not the 
theoretic; it is not so much analytic as synthetic; it is bound 
by no narrowness resulting from historic conventionalities, by 
no dogmas incrusted in ancient creeds, by no servility to king- 
craft; it is the full fruition, up to the present time, of the root, 
trunk, and blossom of the evolution of the animus mundi. 

It is said that the roll of the British drum is heard around 
the world; and so it is: but it is, at best, the growl of the lion 
couchant; it is martial, — it tells of conflict, of force, of threat, 
and of conquered peoples. It is possible that soon the sun 
shall ever light the waving folds of the American flag around 
the revolving earth; if so, we will trust that it shall mean, not 
war, but peace, hope, prosperity, enlightenment, and liberty. 
A voice seems to have recently called over our encompassing 
walls, " Move on!" An ambition which is like unto an in- 
spiration from the Force which moves the world has awakened 
within us, — an ambition to acquire and govern other lands. 
So that its motive be to pass on the torch of Freedom which 
was given to us by the bloody hands of martyrs, well! But 
if it be to crush personal rights for mere trade and self-aggran- 
dizement, we shall but reap the results, the types of which are 
familiar facts in every history. 

In closing, I hope that we shall not go to our homes saying 
that we are tired of the story of the Flag; that we found it dif- 
ficult to keep aroused; that we have felt no patriotic thrills as 
we yielded to the crowding sentiments of the day: but rather 
that we have had a new vision of our country, its history, and 
its greatness; a new feeling about the old things, and a new 
inspiration from the past, — an inspiration which shall pre- 
vent us from indulging in new definitions of liberty, or amend- 
ments to the human rights which were blended in us by His 
hands who molded the earthen dust into living clay. 






HON. JOHN F. DAVIS. 

John Francis Davis was born June 5, 1859. at Angel Island, Bay of 
San Francisco, California. He was educated at the Boys' High School, 
Harvard University, and the University of California. He has served 
as judge of the superior court of Amador County, California, and as 
senator from the tenth district, representing Amador, Calaveras, Al- 
pine, and Mono counties. The speeches printed in this volume are a 
good example of his style of oratory. Other addresses and speeches 
made by him are: "The Judicial Career of Lord Mansfield," " Cardi- 
nal Newman as a Preacher," Memorial Day addresses at various places, 
and his address at the memorial services on the death of President Mc- 
Kinley, at Jackson, California. 

THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA. 

[Delivered on "Miners' Day," February 22, 1898, at the Mechanics' 
Pavilion, San Francisco, during the Golden Jubilee Mining Fair, in 
celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of gold in Cali- 
fornia by John Marshall, at Coloma, January 28, 1848. The Maine had 
just been blown up in Havana harbor, the Spanish War had not yet 
been declared, nor the Hawaiian Islands acquired, and the first reports 
of the riches of the Klondike had just begun to spread. The reference 
to territorial expansion is, therefore, little short of prophetic] 

Fellow-citizens of San Francisco, — On the 24th of last 
month we celebrated by a grand pageant in the streets of this 
city the golden jubilee of the discovery of gold on the Pacific 
Slope. This magnificent mining fair is, I take it, but a con- 
tinued celebration of that event, and to-day, set apart by your 
committee as " Miners' Day," is reserved for an exclusive min- 
ing celebration of the wonderful discovery of gold, that ulti- 
mately gave to the world a new commonwealth, and to the 
flag of the Union its thirty-first star. 

To-day, which, under ordinary circumstances, we would 
devote exclusively to a celebration of the birthday of the 
"Father of his Country," — to-day, while our eyes are still 
moist with sorrow for the fate of the brave men of the pride of 

115 



116 HON. JOHN F. DAVIS. 

our navy, and while we are yet patiently waiting to know 
what it means, — to-day we celebrate an event that finally 
gave to our country its most valued and largest territorial 
acquisition. Then, as now, on our Eastern seaboard, the timid 
for a while seemed to predominate. To them there was 
nothing west of the Rocky Mountains but the Great American 
Desert. But the energetic and the daring, the men who make 
history, the empire-builders of that day, did not shrink at the 
mere thought of territorial aggrandizement. Every new landed 
acquisition that America had ever made — despite all the warn- 
ings of all the prophets — had proved a national blessing. So 
we, the descendants of the pioneers, as we celebrate our anni- 
versary to-day, stop for a moment at the beginning of our 
work, and as we look abroad, to the east and to the west, we 
live the same feelings that cheered the national colors as they 
supplanted the Spanish at Monterey, as they supplanted the 
Bear Flag at Sonoma. We feel that America must still yield 
to the manifest destiny that makes her great. No hostile 
threat of any foreign power, and no grasping insolence of any 
domestic trust, shall dispel our hope that the Stars and Stripes 
will yet float triumphant from Newport News to Pearl Harbor, 
from Washington to Havana, and from Manila to the Golden 
Gate. 

The history of gold has been co-extensive with the history 
of the human race. In every account of a people, we find 
mention made of gold, not of gold in nature or in place, but of 
gold in circulation and in the arts, and yet comparatively 
nothing as to the methods of its extraction. One thousand 
eight hundred and forty-eight years after Christ, the great 
science of practical gold mining and milling, as we know it 
to-day, was in its infancy. Though in other countries and in 
the mining of other metals contrivances of great power and 
ingenuity were already long in use, yet when Marshall first 
discovered the particles of shining gold in the tail-race of the 
lumber-mill at Coloma on that memorable January day in 
1848, human genius had not evolved the quartz-mill, nor 
human ear heard the thunderous music of its roaring stamps. 
The very conception of many of the most efficient parts of the 
one absolutely essential requisite of every producing quartz 



THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA. 117 

mine, the California stamp-mill, — the mill that has gone 
around the world, — was still sleeping in the brains of men 
who are alive to-day. From the long-torn, the rocker, the 
Mexican arrastre, and the old mill with its wooden mortars, 
square wooden stems, and straight wooden cams, to the mod- 
ern stamp-mill, with its iron mortars and stems, revolving 
tappets, circular cams, steel shoes, steel-mouthed rock-breakers, 
automatic ore-feeders, and oscillating vanners, all under the 
control of one's little finger touching an electric button, is like 
a transition from the crude methods of a stone age to the ful- 
fillment of a wizard's dream. Here, as ever, necessity was the 
mother of invention, and just so long as there shall be low- 
grade rock to crush, or rebellious ore to reduce, just so long 
will human ingenuity invent and perfect new and wonderful 
processes for the extraction and saving of gold. 

But with all this development of the processes in both min- 
ing and milling, what development has actually been made in 
the extent of mining itself? The first few years after the rush 
of '49 saw the working out of the richest and most accessible 
placers and crevice deposits throughout the state, and millions 
upon millions of gold was the result. The deep channels of 
the ancient rivers, and the vast deposits which would only 
yield to the hydraulic process, were next attacked, and were 
alone yielding an annual output of over ten millions of dol- 
lars, when hydraulic mining was suppressed by the heavy 
hand of the law. Mines of inestimable value and machinery 
worth millions of dollars were by a stroke of the pen rendered 
valueless. The finding of fact had been made in courts of 
law, that the debris from the hydraulic mines was filling up 
the beds of the American, Feather, Sacramento, and San Joa- 
quin rivers, and the farmers of the valley complained that 
their lands were being ruined. Acting upon the legal principle 
that one must so use his own as not to injure his neighbor, 
the courts suppressed hydraulic mining throughout the state 
wherever the resultant debris flowed into these rivers, which 
practically meant suppressing it everywhere except in the 
Klamath and Trinity river basins. In vain did the miner 
contend that the government, having sold him his land and 
taken his money for it, was bound to make good an "implied 



118 HON. JOHN F. DAVIS. 

guaranty," that the land could be used by the purchaser for 
the purpose for which it had been sold. The courts decided 
against him. Congress recognized no such claim, and main- 
tained that any relief upon that ground would be class legis- 
lation. The miner found himself continually running against 
the steel wall, that he had bought his land with his eyes wide 
open, and with a full knowledge that the inseparable condition 
of all ownership of property and of all liberty is the higher 
law, that it must be so used as not to injure your neighbor. 

For years all hope of the revival of hydraulic mining in any 
form was lost, until the miner, coming to recognize the farm- 
er's rights, sought his co-operation, and the new movement for 
the rehabilitation of hydraulic mining, under the leadership of 
one whom we honor to-day, — the Hon. Jacob H. Neff, — crys- 
tallized into the California Miners' Association. What has 
been accomplished since the inception of the movement is 
well known to you all. . . . 

With the suppression of hydraulic mining, the output of 
California has been, south of the Klamath and Trinity, practi- 
cally confined to her drift mines and her quartz mines. 
Though during later years these mines have been the exclusive 
source of our gold-production, and though in the past fifty 
years the gold-production of this state has reached the enor- 
mous sum of one billion three hundred million dollars, quartz- 
mining in California is but begun. It seems to me the Cali- 
fornia quartz-miner has been the prodigal of the earth. Our 
men, our methods, and our machinery have helped to open 
the quartz mines of all the world except those at home. The 
Comstock, Colorado, Victoria, New South Wales, South Africa, 
Alaska, Venezuela — all have felt the influence of our capital 
and our genius, until of late years California has again begun 
to occupy our attention. The one great blow to legitimate 
gold-mining in California, the one murderous thrust, from 
which it is only now recovering, was the shameless exploiting 
of the Comstock lode of the state of Nevada upon the San 
Francisco market. So violent was the craze, so colossal the 
swindle, and so dependent on mere manipulation did the 
prices of shares become, that when the inevitable collapse 
came, all mining went under the ban, and was looked upon as 



THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA. 119 

stock-gambling. No mining property in this state, however 
meritorious, could command the necessary money for its de- 
velopment. The result has been that the gold-mining industry 
in this state has, until the last three or four years, lagged, and 
now that its revival is assured, we find that the great mineral 
veins of the Mother Lode have scarcely been touched. While 
the Keystone, the Idaho, the old Eureka, the Utica, the Plym- 
outh Consolidated, and the Kennedy have yielded between 
five million and twelve million dollars each, still there has 
been no deep mining in California to speak of. While the 
shaft at the Union Consolidated Mine, in the state of Nevada, 
was sunk to a depth of 3,350 feet fifteen years ago, there are but 
between twenty and thirty mines below one thousand feet, and 
but two below two thousand feet, in California to-day. With 
the magnificent returns attained wherever legitimate quartz- 
mining has been attempted in this state, and with the great 
mining belt of the Sierras waiting to be opened and developed, 
with the course of its great lodes specifically ascertained and 
its geology definitely known, with the uncertainty usually 
incident to mining in great measure eliminated, with wood at 
four dollars a cord, with water at from ten to twenty cents a 
miner's inch, with electric power passing by our front doors, 
with every appliance of the latest machinery at the call of our 
telephone, and with a climate which permits us to work in the 
open air all the year round, we are not tempted by the frozen 
horrors of all the Klondikes of all the world. 

But on an occasion like this we turn from the living present 
to a kindly remembrance of the days gone by. Many of you 
live them over again as you look at the sights of this mining 
fair, — the Days of '49, and the Pioneers. The journey of the 
ox-team across a continent, the famine and thirst and horror 
of the desert, the apprehensive fear of the Indian, the struggle 
through the defiles of the Sierras, the life and luck of the min- 
ing-camp, the longing for the loved ones you left behind, the 
night when you lay awake wondering what you would do with 
the result of your strike, the next day when you found yourself 
dead-broke, the almost womanly attachment you formed for 
your partner, the friendships that remained steadfast when all 
else was gone, the struggle to save the state to the cause of 



120 HON. JOHN F. DAVIS. 

freedom, — these are a few of your memories of the days when 
human nature was put on trial, and when, in the end, all the 
gold of its latent nobility came forth, sublimated from all the 
dross. The memory of the Pioneers will never pass; the tra- 
ditions of Sutter's Fort and Coloma, and Table Mountain and 
Poker Flat, will live forever. The very odor of the balsam of 
the pines, the scent of azaleas, the gleam of banks of red sand- 
stone, live in the pages of our history, while the eloquence of 
Starr King and Baker will survive as long as upon the broad 
domain of California the heart of a patriot will beat with love. 
You of San Francisco owe a debt of gratitude to the Pio- 
neers, which was recognized by the grand celebration of a 
month ago, and is even still more fittingly recognized by this 
mineral display. Your splendid municipality is part of the 
building of their hands. Here upon her seven hills San 
Francisco sits enthroned, the guardian of the commerce of the 
Orient. In no other metropolis of the world can fountains 
play and flowers bloom in the streets all the year round. No 
other city is flanked on one side by a harbor in which all the 
navies of all the nations could ride at anchor, and on the other 
by a park that reaches down to where the waves of the ocean 
lave its feet. Here shall we find revived the old feeling for 
the municipality which the Athenian felt for his Acropolis, 
which the Roman felt for his Forum, which the Parisian still 
feels for his boulevard. The same contempt for obstacles 
which characterized the pioneer will fire your true San Fran- 
ciscan, till grand avenues will cross and surround your city, 
till oaks and elms and lindens and acacias will line your drives 
and thoroughfares, till birds will sing in their branches and 
fountains play in their shade, till the spirit of public im- 
provement will so imbue every citizen, that he will come to 
feel a proprietary interest in every petal of every flower in 
your park, in every pebble on your beach, and in every whitecap 
on your bay. We of the mountains and the mines wish you 
and yours every good fortune, and in return for what you have 
done for us, in return for all that you are at present doing for 
our every legitimate effort, we desire, by the development of 
the mineral resources of California, to do all in our power to 
build up and improve and beautify your grand metropolis, 






THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA. 121 

until its fame shall be such that every traveler on this earth 
shall come to visit it before he dies. 

My friends, gold is the theme of the day we celebrate. But 
he ill interprets the thought and the ideals of our people who 
imagines that in this state, or on this day, or in our heart of 
hearts, we do not know that the claim of California to the 
gratitude of the nation can never rest alone on the fact of the 
material discovery of fifty years ago, or the material produc- 
tion of the years that have followed. This is indeed the 
Golden State, but beyond all our golden one billion three 
hundred million dollars of the royal metal, beyond our golden 
grain, our golden oranges, our golden poppies, our golden sun- 
shine, and our golden wine, the history of our pioneer fathers 
and mothers, their struggles and triumphs in frontier life and 
mining-camp, contains a promise that here, in the veins of 
this mighty commonwealth, in the life and soul of this great 
people, are other treasures, the outcroppings of which we dis- 
cern to-day, — the gold of an upright, downright, lightning- 
defying intellectual honesty; the gold of a sincere and reveren- 
tial spirituality; the gold of a frank, brave, strong, and tender 
manhood; the gold of an intelligent, loving, loyal, pure, and 
plucky womanhood. These are the treasures which California 
will lay at the feet of the nation; these are the virtues which 
are the lineal descendants of the courage and the heroism and 
high endeavor of the gulches and the mines, of those immortal 
scenes and incidents of the days of '49 that are to be the bur- 
den and the theme of the "unsung Iliad" of the Sierras and 
the pines. 



122 HON. JOHN F. DAVIS. 



TRIBUTE TO THE AMERICAN FLAG. 

[The following is the conclusion of a reply to the toast, "Our Flags," 
delivered at the banquet of the Grand Parlor of the Native Sons of the 
Golden West, at Redwood City, California, April 29, 1897.] 

But, my brothers, above this devotion to the Bear Flag of 
California, and above our love of the romance and the reality 
of all it commemorates, is our loyalty to the tender grace, the 
perfect beauty, and the thrilling promise of the red, white, and 
blue. To no man worthy of the name is there an object on earth 
more dear than the flag of his country. In every age and in 
every clime it has been the inspiration of the loftiest endeavor 
and of the most ennobling self-sacrifice. It makes an enthusiast 
of the cynic; it sobers the drunkard in his brawl; it makes a 
coward brave. It is strong enough to separate friend from friend, 
to sunder the closest ties of family and home, to make a widow 
of the wife, to rob the maiden of her lover. The tenderest 
lines of all time are the reply from Lovelace to Lucasta, when, 
in answer to her reproof that he should not leave her love to 
follow his country's flag to the wars, he writes: — 

" I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
Loved I not honor more." 

From out the hatreds and contentions and wars of the past, 
history has preserved many an incident of heroism inspired 
by a nation's flag to warm the heart of patriotism. Banners 
devoid of beauty, representing little beyond the cause of some 
petty dynasty, often stirred men's souls to action. And if this 
be true of the grotesque rags of antiquity, what shall be claimed 
for a flag whose every color, whose every device, whose every 
thread, and whose every stitch is full of meaning? We need 
not seek far afield for an instance in our modern world. In 
this age, when commercial aggrandizement would sometimes 
seem to be the sole motive of human effort, when we are cyni- 
cally told that a due regard for the security of government 



TRIBUTE TO THE AMERICAN FLAG. 123 

three-per-cents, coupled with a willingness to take six-per- 
cents where the security is not so good, has done more to pro- 
mote the cause of civilization than the examples of all the 
saints and all the sages, — in this age, almost yesterday, and 
at our very doors, has been performed an act of heroism, the 
memory of which should live as long as the world goes spin- 
ning down the ages. 

A few years ago I had the privilege of visiting the scene of 
the incident to which I refer. Early on the 15th of March, 
1889, there rode peacefully at anchor in the little harbor of 
Apia, in the Samoan Islands, seven men-of-war, — the Ameri- 
can Trenton, Vandalia, and Nipsic, the German Eber, Olga, 
and Adler, the British corvette Calliope, and a small fleet of 
merchantmen. In front of them lay the outer coral reef, that 
skirted the island like one of Saturn's rings, and behind them, 
first the inner reef and then the shore and a wilderness of wav- 
ing cocoanut-palms. Suddenly, the falling of the barometer 
heralded the advent of the dreaded hurricane of the South Seas. 
Steadily the barometer fell, until all the war-ships, heeding the 
warning, sent down their topgallant-masts, housed their top- 
masts, and lashed the lower yards on the rail. Every ship 
had steam up and every anchor ready to let go. By evening 
the storm had broken upon the fleet, and every vessel had out 
her storm-anchors, some of them as many as five. At eight 
o'clock the Trenton's port bower-chain parted. By midnight 
a furious hurricane leaped down upon the little harbor, and 
continued its rage till one hundred and forty-five brave men 
had perished, till every merchantman was lost, and till every 
man-of-war but one was gone, four being totally wrecked upon 
the reefs and two driven maimed and disabled upon the shore. 

The Eber was the first to go. By daylight, awful seas were 
breaking over the little craft, till of a sudden one great wave 
lifted it like a cork, and carried it, dragging its anchors, onto 
the inner ledge of coral. A moment after, the Eber slipped 
from the reef, and settling into deep water, plunged beneath 
the waves, with every soul on board. The Adler was next 
lifted bodily on the crest of a frightful sea and hurled upon its 
beam ends upon the reef, a total wreck, careening until the 
whole hull shone above the waves. More and more terrific 



124 HON. JOHN F. DAVIS. 

grew the force of wind and rain, until waves that looked like 
mountains rolled in from the mighty deep and spent their 
fury upon the reefs and what was left of the ill-fated fleet. 
Every remaining ship was steaming ahead at full speed into 
the teeth of the gale, to relieve the strain on the anchors. The 
Nipsic, and later the Olga, abandoned the unequal contest, 
and, slipping their anchors, were successfully beached. The 
Calliope, after colliding with the Olga, and holding to her an- 
chors till nearly upon the reef, finally slipped the last remain- 
ing one, and staked everything upon the chance of her engines 
being powerful enough to take her out of the harbor. With 
her boilers throbbing under every pound of steam possible to 
crowd into them, she stood still for one awful moment, and 
then, after fouling the Vandalia, slowly inch by inch fought 
her way out into the blinding sea. The Vandalia, her last 
anchor gone, was driven by the storm upon the reef with a 
terrific shock, sinking her entire hull within fifty yards of the 
Nipsic, losing her captain and half her crew and driving the 
remainder into the rigging. 

The Trenton was now the only remaining ship afloat. Hers 
had been an awful fight in the outer harbor. All the previous 
night she had steamed ahead when possible, to aid the tension 
on three sheet-anchors. The tugging and wrenching of this 
gigantic mass of four thousand tons plunging and rolling on 
the cables had been frightful. By morning, her rudder was 
carried away, torn asunder by a piece of floating wreckage. In 
this helpless condition, great floods of water began to pour in 
through the hawse-pipes upon the berth-decks and down the 
hatches into the fire-rooms. The crew worked like demons at 
the pumps and buckets to save the fires. Every hatch on the 
spar and gun deck had been battened down. They plugged 
up the hawse-pipes, but the wild force of the waters tore the 
moorings away. The firemen were serving the boilers, waist- 
deep in water, and by ten o'clock the last fire had been drowned 
out. The crew rushed to the rigging, hoisting a storm-sail on the 
mizzen, and ran up the Stars and Stripes to the gaff. Till then, 
no flag had been hoisted on any boat that day. As the Calli- 
ope crept by, our jackies, nothing daunted, gave her three ring- 
ing cheers, and three cheers for the American flag came back 



TRIBUTE TO THE AMERICAN FLAG. 125 

from the British sailors on the wings of the storm. All day 
long our brave boys fought to save that ship and flag. Despite 
their heroic maneuvering with the storm-sails, foot by foot the 
tempest crowded the Trenton with her dragging anchors toward 
death and destruction, and as night began to descend, parted 
her last remaining chain, and hurled her broadside toward the 
reef. Their rudder gone, their fires gone, their anchors gone — 
the flag still floated at the gaff. They stopped to give three 
cheers to their comrades of the wrecked Vandalia dying in the 
rigging, and then — when all hope had vanished — the poor 
boys of the band took their stand, and beneath a foreign sky, 
with their country's flag above them, flinging its defiance to the 
gale, as their ship went down into the yeast of her yawning 
grave — with their dying breaths — they played "The Star- 
Spangled Banner." 

The banner that inspired that act has on its folds no sinis- 
ter design, bodes no ill to any portion of the human race. It 
will bless any people over whom it may ever float. In any 
cause for the good of humanity, it will ever be found "full high 
advanced." It symbolizes all that is best in the national life 
of a great and mighty people. Emblem of the true and the 
brave! All its red is for liberty, all its white for equality, all 
its blue for fraternity, and all its stars for the highest hopes 
and tenderest fears and noblest aspirations of every lover of 
the good and the true and the beautiful, — of every soul that 
makes for righteousness, in every class, of every creed, and 
every color, — this wide world 'round, among all the sons of 
men. 



FRANK H. SHORT. 

Frank H. Short, of Fresno, California, represents the highest type 
of the lawyer. His attitude on legal questions is characterized by a 
spirit of equity, and his attitude on public questions is free from the 
dominant spirit of commercialism. His addresses on public occasions 
have been numerous. He is an excellent extemporaneous speaker. 



OUR UNTIMELY DEAD. 
[Delivered at San Jose, California, in 1902.] 

The attribute of the human race that has most distinguished 
it in all times and in all ages, is respect for its ancestors and 
hope for its posterity. The generation that shows little re- 
spect for the history, teachings, and precepts, the fame and 
memory, of its ancestors, is a generation deserving to be, and 
likely to be, forgotten and despised by posterity. Respect 
for those that have preceded us, hope for those that are to fol- 
low, are the characteristics that tend to elevate mankind above 
the beasts, and ally humanity nearest to the gods. Without 
this influence prevailing in a controlling degree, nothing good 
could long survive; no evil could be destroyed. 

Six men have been nominated by the Republican party and 
elevated to the office of President of the United States, and of 
these six men, exactly one half have been, during their terms 
of office, assassinated. This is a record, times and conditions 
considered, unparalleled in the history of the world. This ex- 
traordinary situation does not seem to have had its origin in 
any defined cause or condition, but appears to have come about 
by a concurrence of disconnected viciousness and exceptional 
misfortune. 

In the Old World, few attempted assassinations have suc- 
ceeded. The attempts far exceed those in this country; and 
while there an assassin usually misses a tyrant, here he seems 
never to fail in his attempt to kill a benefactor of mankind. 

126 



OUR UNTIMELY DEAD. 127 

While much will be attempted, little will be accomplished 
by means of the direct operation of law. An assassin of this 
class is invariably immune to reason, impervious to shame or 
disgrace, incapable of fear of death, in the sense that such fear 
restrains crime. He glories in things dishonorable to all honor- 
able men; as his disgrace is deepened as his dishonor is more 
widely known, the self-glorification of such misconceived libels 
on the name of the human race proportionately increases. Ob- 
viously, such remedies as can be used should be rigorously 
applied. All possible precautions should be taken both against 
the sources as well as the substance of anarchy. But such 
laws, and such laws only, as are strictly consistent with our 
constitution and form of government will be found most effi- 
cient. Any laws or procedure going beyond these ancient and 
defined boundaries will be found inefficient, and in the end 
retroactive and injurious. 

These three men — Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley — were 
peculiarly the type and character of men that, even from an 
assassin's point of view, did not justify assassination. Each 
had been advanced from the ranks of toil by the suffrages of his 
countrymen. Each, in his own wa}% but in an unusual degree, 
was kind, considerate, loving, gentle, and forgiving. It is true 
that during the administration of Abraham Lincoln the coun- 
try was engaged in one of the most fearful and lamentable wars 
that ever afflicted any people. But what could have better il- 
lustrated the man, his real spirit and love of peace, than the 
closing words of his first inaugural address? 

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not 
in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government 
will not assail you; you can have no conflict without being 
yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in 
heaven to destroy the government; while I shall have the 
most solemn one to ' preserve, protect, and defend it.' 

"I am loath to close; we are not enemies, but friends; we 
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it 
must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of 
memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave 
to every living heart and hearthstone all over this proud land, 
will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as 
surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 



128 FRANK H. SHORT. 

If this people and this nation had existed only to give birth 
to Abraham Lincoln, each would have justified its existence. 
So long as history shall endure, he will stand as an unanswer- 
able contradiction to all who claim or assume that rank or sta- 
tion, opportunities, or even special preparation, are essential to 
the greatest usefulness and success in a position of the great- 
est possible responsibility and honor. No civilized man ever 
came into the world in greater loneliness or poverty. He was 
born upon the border, and grew up along the ragged edges of 
civilization. Without schools or churches, except of the poor- 
est and the rudest, wholly without the supposed broadening 
influences of travel, knowing only the advantages of that uni- 
versity of the outside world, that college common to all of the 
American people, he showed himself the equal in skill, pa- 
tience, endurance, and true statesmanship of any man of any 
age or country. When others, whose radical and sectional 
course had brought the country to the verge of war and sepa- 
ration, recoiled in alarm from the responsibility of the danger 
they had created, he alone of all the leaders never faltered. 
In all that pertained to the bonds of affection that should have 
united his distracted countrymen, in the memories of the past, 
in the common interest of all, in everything that tended toward 
peace and to avert war, he was vine and flower. But in the 
performance of his duty as he saw it, in his adherence to his 
official oath, in the preservation of the Union as he found it, 
he was rock and oak. In simplicity, in high character, in the 
possession of that characteristic we call humanity or human 
nature, he was the greatest character of all history. Many of 
the great orations of the world have been preserved. Two of 
these are each, many times over, shorter than any of the 
others. Both of these were productions of Lincoln, — his sec- 
ond inaugural and his Gettysburg address. 

Lincoln belonged to the rare class of statesmen who are will- 
ing to sow that others may reap. In his administration we lost 
hundreds of thousands of our bravest and best sons. One half 
of the shipping commerce of the country blocked the other 
until both were destroyed. Our great agricultural resources 
were laid in ruins over nearly half of the country. The na- 
tional debt multiplied and grew into hundreds of millions. 



OUR UNTIMELY DEAD. 129 

Neither he nor his immediate generation was permitted to 
harvest the results of their sacrifice and loss. In the estima- 
tion of many alleged statesmen of to-daj 7 , the man who would 
sacrifice so much for a mere principle should not be recognized 
as a statesman. But none of these same men would dare ques- 
tion the wise statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln. 

Greed and avarice must have their reward to-day, but truth 
and honor, undisturbed, await the verdict of posterity and the 
coming of God Almighty's own and better to-morrow. Abra- 
ham Lincoln was the chief figure in the fiercest and most un- 
relenting struggle that ever divided the people of any country. 
While in all things he was unyielding in the preservation of 
the Union, struggling always toward the light, and always to 
do the right as God gave him to see the right, no man was 
ever more resolute, firm, and determined, yet no man was ever 
more kind and generous, sympathetic and forgiving. His 
greatest love was his love of truth. His only enemies were 
the enemies of his country. He recoiled with aversion and 
gentleness from offending any person. He would oppose and 
offend all mankind in defense of a principle. And so it has 
come to be true that he is beloved by all men everywhere; his 
greatness grows with the receding years, for us and for all 
future generations. 

" Though round his breast the rolling clouds of war are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on his head." 

Following not long after Lincoln, came Garfield, — a soldier, 
in his youth, in the Civil War. Entering early in life the House 
of Representatives, he grew into commanding influence in legis- 
lation. It was not an accident that he was chosen as a compro- 
mise candidate in the great struggle between the forces of Conk- 
ling and Blaine; it was because he was a man of infinite labor. 
Born only a little higher in the social and financial scale than 
Lincoln, he had made his way forward and upward by merit 
alone. In counsel he was safe and wise; in action he was 
strong and successful; in debate, if second to any, it was only 
to Blaine and Conkling. He came to the Presidency full of 
strength, hope, and courage. His Cabinet is memorable for 
its brilliancy. But even before preliminary disputes could be 



130 FRANK H. SHORT. 

settled, and the great work for which he and his great advisers 
were so well equipped could even he well begun, he, too, was 
shot wantonly and wickedly by a man half mad, half-devil. 
Between the paths of hope and the portals of death he lingered 
for weary weeks. He, too, passed in his prime to the great 
beyond. 

His eulogy was pronounced by Blaine, his great Secretary 
of State, — Blaine, whose illuminated intelligence lighted the 
way for statesmen of his own and succeeding generations, — 
Blaine, also, too soon to follow his illustrious friend. Our lan- 
guage contains no passage more beautiful than this great man's 
sweet and touching tribute to the character and virtues of his 
dead friend. Garfield was in all things an admirable man; 
he saw the brightest and the best of life; he gave courage; he 
inspired hope; he brought good cheer; he inspired confidence; 
and he was taken all too soon for the good of his country and 
his countrymen. 

William McKinley, — it seems but yesterday that he was 
with us, the leader of leaders, and the controlling force in all 
our great and momentous struggles with the problems that 
oppressed and vexed us then, and will continue to engross the 
attention of succeeding generations. 

William McKinley, the soldier boy who went to the front in 
the Civil War and came home as, and ever remained, Major 
McKinley. Soldier, Congressman, Governor, and President, 
long and faithfully he served his country. He was a man of 
few, surprisingly few, animosities. Yielding that others might 
yield, with a magician's skill in compassing results, he grew, 
never suddenly or even rapidly, but steadily. From the first 
year he entered public life he gained in strength and influence, 
until at the time of his death he stood in a position of such ex- 
traordinary influence and command, that about the only limit 
to what he could achieve was what his discretion and judg- 
ment would not permit him to ask. In all his personal traits 
he was kind and gentle. He was married in his youth to a 
brilliant and beautiful woman, but on the very threshold of 
their life together she was stricken with an incurable affliction. 
No wife ever had a more gentle, faithful, or devoted husband. 
No cares of state, or labors of his own, or demands of others, 



OUR UNTIMELY DEAD. 131 

could ever distract him from the most detailed and devoted 
attention to her every wish and want. 

Many a man, wise in his own conceit, scoffing at the faith of 
his fathers, and ridiculing the custom of his ancestors, might 
easily discover a needed rebuke in the life and death of Wil- 
liam McKinley. Nor is he alone in exemplifying these virtues. 

It is perhaps more usual that a man like President Hayes 
should be devoted to his wife, for she was helpful in a 
womanly way, and exercised almost a controlling influence in 
his life. She preceded him but a little while, and in the inter- 
vening time he seemed to regard but little the passing of time 
or the occurring of events; and although his had also been an 
illustrious career, and though he too had been a soldier and a 
general in the Civil War, a member of Congress, governor 
of his native state, and chief magistrate of his country, in his 
last hours his mind did not revert to his many earthly honors; 
he thought not of the times when he had been general, Con- 
gressman, Governor, President, but his mind reached forward 
to his faithful, loving companion in the just beyond, and he 
murmured as he passed away, "Lay me by Lucy's side." 
Such great lessons should not be lost nor forgotten. They 
teach the lesson that affection does not perish with youth, but 
continues with the years, and the real love of a real life grows 
brighter and brighter as the end comes on, like the increased 
glory of the setting sun. 

The assassination of President McKinley was as atrocious 
as any act could possibly be. All his life he had been a kind 
man, striving not to give offense to any one, and to work no 
injury even to his enemies. His chief purpose in life seemed 
to be to labor from day to day for the peace, prosperity, and 
well-being of his people; to harvest for them to-day, with as 
little loss and sacrifice as possible, the greatest possible return 
for their labor and industry. He was apparently entirely 
without malice. He was a guest at a great national exposition 
exemplifying peace, comity, and commerce. With democratic 
simplicity he mingled with his fellow-citizens. Himself child- 
less, he loved the patter of little feet and the prattle of childish 
voices. He stood with his hands on the head of a sweet and 
smiling child, looking for a moment with love and tenderness 



132 FRANK H. SHORT. 

on her innocent face. It was thus and at this moment that a 
misborn, calloused human brute found it in his depraved na- 
ture, not in his heart, — he could not have had a heart, — to 
shoot him to death. No act ever exceeded in atrocity the 
"deep damnation of his taking off." It will be a long time 
before his countrymen will fully recover from the rude shock 
of an act at once so unexpected and so vile. 

There are many things we can never understand. Perhaps 
McKinley's last words express it as well as any words ever 
can. "It is God's will and way." Looking back over the 
lives of these three men, their untimely and inexplicable 
assassination, reverting to the history of our country, in which 
they comprehend so large a part, observing all the miracles of 
war and peace and progress that have been wrought, we say, 
Surely, it is God's will and way. Mankind could never have 
wrought so well and so wisely. As we strive to look beyond 
through the oppressive problems of our day and hour, and 
realize the supreme confidence that possesses the successful 
and progressive thoughtless, the overwhelming doubts and deep 
oppressions of those that seek to reckon and divine whither 
it all tends, we would gladly solve it if we might, by saying, 
May God's will and way, to which they appealed, afford as 
safe and sure a guide for us and for our children as it furnished 
to our fathers. 

Our highest loyalty to our party requires that we shall in- 
sist that it shall be right, not right as we severally shall cap- 
tiously assume the right, but right consistent with the funda- 
mental principles of our government and the genius of our 
institutions, — right as prescribed by the constitution, by the 
Declaration of Independence, — right as tested by our first 
platform of principles; by the life, character, and teachings of 
Abraham Lincoln. That party would not be on the right 
course, or really strong, that could not safely permit its mem- 
bers to adopt this motto, "My party — may she always be 
right; but always my country." 

We have in all parties too much party servility and too 
little party loyalty; too many men extolling the party spirit, 
dreaded by Washington, ready to deny the liberty of speech or 
action within the party, absolutely essential to good citizen- 



OUR UNTIMELY DEAD. 133 

ship, but who would turn and rend the party all too soon if 
the inducement or consideration for party service were to be 
removed. Ideals, correct principles, the hearts, consciences, 
and affections of men, have always governed in the end. A 
generation may tarry for a little while by the fleshpots of 
Egypt, but they always grow weary of such low living, and 
struggle on to better and higher things. 

In my youth I spent many years far out on the boundless 
prairies of the mighty and then undeveloped West. I have 
seen the clouds gather, and the night fall dark and impene- 
trable. There was no guiding path upon the earth below or in 
the heavens above. All that could be done was to watch and 
wait. Wait, and the darkest night will end; wait, and the 
blackest clouds will pass away; watch and wait, and the north 
star always comes once more in view. 

The most skillful mariner on the most tranquil seas is hope- 
lessly lost but for the guidance of the compass and the star; by 
their unvarying direction and kindly light the most tempest- 
uous and dangerous seas are navigated; and so we in times of 
peace and prosperity may be in infinitely greater danger than 
in times of war, if we be not mindful of the compass that 
pointed the way in peace and war for those that have preceded 
us, and if we do not guide the ship of state by the constitution 
so wisely set before us, — the guiding star for us and for all 
succeeding generations. 

We have founded here a new government and a new order 
of things, founded upon the will and control of all the people. 
Thus far we have succeeded beyond the dreams of our fathers. 
We have, by the counsel, the labor, and the energy of all the 
people, set the high mark for all things progressive, — in the dis- 
semination of learning; in practical science; in inventions and 
discoveries; in the greatest good to the greatest number; in 
average benefits to the average man. In ways and methods 
we may be subject to severe, perhaps harsh, criticism, but in 
results contributing to the happiness of all that think, and 
labor, and strive, we have, in a way quite wonderful, distanced 
all past efforts of all the generations of mankind. 

In the midst of success and prosperity it is only needful to 
keep in mind the causes that have contributed to and produced 



134 FRANK H. SHORT. 

our pre-eminence. What we have accomplished is not the 
result of any peculiar advantages, conditions, inventions, or 
discoveries, half as much as it is the result of the greatest aver- 
age of intelligence, energy, character and opportunity, patriot- 
ism and courage, that has inspired our people. It is the result 
of a union of mind and purpose, and equal incentive and equal 
opportunity. American citizenship and American manhood 
have produced our inventions and riches and developed our re- 
sources. All that is required is, that we do not forget the cause 
and worship the effect. Preserve the equality, hope, manliness, 
and courage of the average man. Keep forever inviolate the 
principle, in theory and practice, that all men are created free 
and equal. A government so conducted is founded and based 
upon eternal truth, and as surely as truth shall survive, so 
equally true it is that a government so conducted and main- 
tained shall perpetually survive. That governments founded 
upon error and maintained by force have always fallen to 
decay, is no proof or precedent that a government of all of the 
people for all of the people shall not continue all of the time. 

If it were an honor to be a citizen of Sparta or Athens or 
Rome, how infinitely greater it is to be a citizen of the Ameri- 
can republic! 

Such equal citizenship is at once so responsible, so honor- 
able, that no place or station, or office or riches, can add to it, 
and there ought never to be any place or station or wealth in 
this country that could add any preference or dignity to simple 
citizenship. Any man whose heart is not responsive to this 
sentiment is drifting from the morning of true Americanism. 
Our position as Republicans but adds to our responsibility as 
citizens. Ours is the greatest political organization in its past 
achievements and in its present strength that ever existed in 
any age or country. This is not boastful, because it is truth- 
ful. It should not inspire us with vanity, but should impress 
us with our responsibility. 

Never again in the history of the world can there be spread 
out before any people such an imperial domain as that 
subjugated by our race. No other race can ever excel in worth 
or virtue those ancestors of ours, who possessed the courage 
to liberate themselves from others, a rectitude equal to the 



OUR UNTIMELY DEAD. 135 

task of self-subjugation, and an energy that has turned a wil- 
derness of wastes and woods into a wilderness of cities and of 
homes, — a race that wrested the scepter from tyrants and the 
lightning from the clouds, — a race that gave freedom to man- 
kind, and as a recompense harnessed and enslaved the elements 
to infinitely greater toil and usefulness. If such a people, 
upon such a domain, could not found a government of the 
people and for the people and by the people that could long 
endure, by what stretch of the imagination or dream of philoso- 
phy shall mankind ever again be induced to strive or hope? 

This understood and considered, we are not upon trial for 
the Republican party, not for this nation or the union of states, 
not for a generation, or even a race, but we are upon trial for 
human liberty, equality, self-government for mankind and for 
all time. Let us hope that it shall be God's will and way that 
those we mourn to-day as our untimely dead, with others 
whose worth and service have adorned the history of our party 
to such a degree that, having passed beyond and above us, 
they belong to our country and to mankind; shall from the 
battlements above forever look down upon the nation and the 
people that they served and loved so well, and may they ever 
see their countrymen free, equal, and untrammeled, and this 
nation moving on its destined and designed course, that, see- 
ing, they may know that they lived not, labored not, neither 
died, in vain. 



DUNCAN E. McKINLAY. 

Duncan E. McKinlay was born at Orillia, Ontario, Canada, October 
6, 1862; educated till twelve years of age in common schools of Orillia, 
and then learned the trade of carriage-painter ; at twenty-one years of 
age he came to San Francisco, and worked at his trade until the year 
1884, when he removed to Santa Rosa, where he engaged in mercantile 
business and studied law; was admitted to practice in the supreme 
court of Calif Ornia in 1892 ; in McKinley's first Presidential campaign 
in 1896, he was nominated elector-at-large on the Republican ticket; 
and in 1901 was appointed by President McKinley as assistant United 
States attorney at San Francisco. He has delivered a number of nota- 
ble addresses : on the monetary question, in 1896, at Los Angeles, on 
the opening of the McKinley campaign ; on the Chinese question, at 
the Chinese exclusion convention at Metropolitan Temple, San Fran- 
cisco, November 22, 1901. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

[Delivered before Lincoln Post, G. A. R., San Francisco, at the cele- 
bration of Lincoln's birthday, February 13, 1902.] 

Away out in the Atlantic Ocean, off the northwest coast of 
Africa, there lies a group of islands belonging to the kingdom 
of Spain. These islands were known to the ancients as the 
Fortunate Isles, but the world to-day knows them as the 
Canaries. This group consists of several small and seven 
large islands. The largest of the group is called Teneriffe. 

This isle of Teneriffe is rocky in its character; ridges and 
seams of rocky formation cross and divide its sixty miles of 
length, while spires and turrets of lava rear themselves on 
every side. But one great mountain, greater than all the rest 
combined, towers upward, through the mists and vapors which 
hang over the land; upward, still higher, through the clouds 
themselves; upward, until its snow-capped summit scintillates 
and glistens against the eternal blue of the firmament. 

Now, the peculiarity of this wonderful phenomenon of na- 
ture is this: that the top of the mountain is rarely, if ever, 

136 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 137 

seen by the people on the island, or on the sea near the moun- 
tain's base; it rises so high that its summit is lost in the heavy 
atmosphere. 

It is only far out upon the ocean that the eye of the be- 
holder may rise above the clouds and mark the glory of the 
u orb which rules the day" hovering over it like a halo, or re- 
flected again from its shimmering mail of virgin white. 

A vessel voyaging in those latitudes draws nearer to the 
island, and each mile of her approach shows a transformation 
in the wonderful mountain: the peak gradually recedes, and 
finally vanishes from view, but the sides, slopes, and outlines 
become apparent, rich and gorgeous in their variegated cover- 
ing of tropical foliage. This feature is as interesting and as 
lovely as the magnificence of the mountain's summit. 

And so from the view-point of to-day, when our nation has 
reached a position of might, wealth, and power untold among 
the nations of the earth, we strain our eyes backward through 
the perspective of forty years of achievement and progress, 
never paralleled in all history, and there, upon the horizon of 
the past, above the vapors and the clouds of passion and preju- 
dice, of hatred and sectional strife, above the shock and roar, 
the carnage, the agony, the devastation and desolation, of 
fratricidal war, all the world may behold, emblazoned on the 
everlasting heavens, the pure personality, the magnificent life, 
the sublime achievements, and the immortal glory of Abraham 
Lincoln! 

But, friends, like the voyagers on the vessel approaching 
the island, those of us here assembled who love and reverence 
the memory of this remarkable man, this splendid product of 
American civilization, wish to draw near and with closer view 
in retrospection examine the beauty and symmetry of his life 
and character. 

Abraham Lincoln was only fifty-six years old when his 
tragic death removed him from the world; and his great 
achievements were accomplished, the mountain top of his 
career was builded, in the last seven years of his life. Lin- 
coln was scarcely known outside the state of Illinois until the 
year 1858. What fame he had before 1858 was local; till then, 
he was not ranked among the great statesmen of the nation. 



138 DUNCAN E. McKINLAY. 

But when the Republican convention in that year nominated 
him as their candidate for the Senatorship of Illinois against 
Stephen A. Douglas, one of the acknowledged leaders of the 
Democratic party, the eyes of the nation were turned upon 
Lincoln to discover what manner of man he was. This was 
soon demonstrated. In the speech accepting the nomination, 
Lincoln displayed such a breadth of mind, such an under- 
standing and grasp of the vital issues of that stormy period of 
our nation's history, that the friends of the Union hailed his 
advent into national politics with extreme satisfaction. 

In his speech of acceptance, Lincoln, quoting from Holy 
Writ, declared that "a house divided against itself cannot 
stand." He declared that, in his opinion, the American na- 
tion could not "endure permanently half-slave and half-free"; 
that the United States must soon become all slave or all free. 
This masterful statement, so pregnant with truth, made him 
at once the feared and hated opponent of slavery and the 
slaveholder; but, on the other hand, it placed him foremost 
in rank among the champions of union and liberty. 

Although Lincoln was unsuccessful in his campaign against 
the "Little Giant of the Democracy," and Douglas secured the 
coveted Senatorship, yet the brilliant canvass made by him, 
his speeches, so full of logic and unanswerable argument, his 
dignity, his honesty, and his intense earnestness, satisfied the 
North that at last a leader had arisen, able and willing to cope 
with the mighty political problems then shaking the nation to 
its very foundations. This wonderful campaign made Lincoln 
the logical candidate of the Republican party for the Presi- 
dency in the succeeding Presidential campaign. 

When Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency at Chicago 
on May 18, 1860, he at once leaped into prominence as a fac- 
tor in world politics, for, owing to dissensions in the ranks of 
the Democratic party, his election was a foregone conclusion. 
When election-day was past, and the result known for a cer- 
tainty, the elements of discord became, if possible, more agi- 
tated and turbulent, and Lincoln found himself in the very 
center of a seething whirlpool of difficulty and danger. Then 
it was that the storm which had been slowly gathering year 
by year, and decade after decade, since the day of the adoption 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 139 

of the constitution, burst in all its fury upon our devoted land; 
then, in their arrogance, the proud secessionists insulted the 
emblem of American nationality floating over Fort Sumter's 
walls; then the shot was fired whose reverberations echoed 
around the world. 

No need at this time to try to picture in detail the agony 
and suffering of the four long years of blood and iron which 
followed. 

I see before me at this moment the whitened heads and 
scarred and wrinkled faces of some of those who in the 
strength and nobleness of their manhood went forth into that 
awful struggle, for the honor of their flag and for the glory of 
the nation. 

I am sure I see before me as I speak the kindly eyes of some 
who remained at home in those days of suffering, — remained 
patiently, prayerfully, watching and waiting by the lonely 
fireside in the desolate homestead, — waiting, watching, and 
praying for the return of the husband, the lover, or the 
brother who had marched away behind the "starry flag, down 
to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right." 

And oh! too many, far, far too many, listened in vain for 
footsteps that would ring over the threshold never again! 

The difficulties and dangers encountered by Abraham Lin- 
coln during his four years as President of the United States 
have hardly, if ever, been equaled by the head of any govern- 
ment of a civilized land in the same space of time. When he 
stood upon the Capitol steps at Washington on March 4, 1861, 
and, raising his hand to Heaven, solemnly swore to uphold 
the laws and constitution of the United States, eight millions 
of his fellow-citizens (one third the population of the country) 
were antagonistic to him and to his policy, and in insurrection 
against his government. 

The army of the United States, numbering only sixteen 
thousand men, was stationed in remote parts, and officered by 
many officers who were in sympathy with secession. 

The navy, such as it was, was scattered to the four winds. 
The treasury of the nation was empty, and the border states 
wavering in their allegiance. Yet in full view of all this, in his 
inaugural address, Lincoln declared: "In view of the consti- 



140 DUNCAN E. McKINLAY. 

tution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent 
of my ability I shall take care, as the constitution itself ex- 
pressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union shall be 
faithfully executed in all the states." 

The events which crowded behind Lincoln's inauguration 
are a prominent part of our national record, with which every 
one is familiar, and there is little need to do more than epito- 
mize them now. The fall of Fort Sumter was followed by the 
first call for volunteers, and seventy-five thousand rallied to 
the defense of the Union. This was but the first step in the 
organization of the mightiest army whose martial tread ever 
thundered o'er the earth. 

A splendid navy was quickly gathered, armed, manned, and 
equipped, and the inventive genius of Americans, even while 
battles waged round them on land and sea, devised new craft 
of war, and invented new methods of warfare on the waters, 
that rendered obsolete and incompetent the navies of every 
land. 

The expenses of the government and of the war were pro- 
vided for by a series of masterful financial operations, made 
possible by the loyalty and devotion of the capitalists of the 
North, which have since commanded the admiration of the en- 
tire financial world. 

As though the extraordinary difficulties at home were not 
enough to paralyze the brain and break the energy of Lincoln 
and his advisers, complications arose abroad with the two 
greatest nations of Europe, — England and France, — because 
of the desire of those nations to recognize the belligerency of 
the Confederacy. 

Our minister to the Court of St. James, Mr. Adams, was in- 
structed not to listen to any suggestions concerning our inter- 
nal affairs. Nevertheless, Lincoln was soon confronted with 
the possibility of a declaration of war by England over the 
seizure of Mason and Slidell, taken by Captain Wilkes from 
the British steamer Trent. This difficulty was finally adjusted 
by the surrender of Mason and Slidell to the British authori- 
ties. 

Then a series of disasters and defeats pursued the Union 
arms, in themselves more than enough to make the stoutest 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 141 

hearts quail, and blanch with fear and apprehension the faces 
of the strongest friends of the government. 

Incompetency and jealousies prevailed among the officers of 
the government, both civil and military, and upon Lincoln 
devolved the duty of removing incompetents, harmonizing 
jealousies, studying conditions, and forcing results. 

Then when a pronounced victory blessed the North, Lincoln 
took the occasion to declare his emancipation proclamation. 
Five days after the battle of Antietam, in September, 1862, he 
proclaimed all slaves in states in rebellion against the govern- 
ment on the first day of January, 1863, emancipated forever. 
This proclamation sounded the death knell of slavery, and 
won for Lincoln the applause of all Christendom. 

In the summer of 1863 the crisis came. General Robert E. 
Lee, at the head of his victorious army, invaded Pennsylvania, 
but was met and mastered by Meade at Gettysburg. The in- 
vasion of Pennsylvania marked the high tide of rebellion; the 
blood-crested waves of war broke in vain and spent themselves 
against the stone wall at Gettysburg, and when Pickett and 
his twenty thousand of the chivalry of the South charging 
against the stubborn lines of blue were hurled backward, 
crushed and broken, the storm-clouds lifted, and the stars of 
hope gleamed out again over our stricken land. 

Friends, we look back on that awful day, and we realize 
that the host who perished on Gettysburg's stricken field died 
not in vain. By the pouring out of their patriot blood our 
nation was consecrated forever. Columbia was born into a 
new life of freedom, and the " government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people" was established on American soil, 
firm as the Rock of Ages! 

The victory of Gettysburg was immediately followed by the 
news of the successes of Grant on the Mississippi, but the na- 
tional joy was again dampened by new complications with 
England and France, — with England because of the encour- 
agement given by her to the fitting out of privateers to prey 
on American commerce; with France because of Napoleon III.'s 
desire to aid the Confederacy, and establish an empire under 
Maximilian in Mexico. The firm attitude of Lincoln effectu- 
ally discouraged the attempts of England to aid the South by 



142 DUNCAN E. McKINLAY. 

the outfitting of privateers, and the ambitions of Napoleon to 
aid the Confederacy and establish his Mexican empire. 

The year 1864 was a year of triumph for the Union. The 
brilliant victories and operations accomplished by Grant, 
Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and other generals almost as 
prominent, brought the end very near. But to Lincoln in the 
greatest measure was praise and credit due. So great was the 
confidence of the people of the North in his ability and power 
to master the situation, that a universal demand went up for 
his re-election. So popular had he become by this time, that 
he received 212 electoral votes as against 21 given to General 
McClellan, and besides, the largest popular vote, in proportion 
to the population, ever cast for an American President. 

Early in the year 1865 the end came. The march of Sher- 
man to the sea, then up through the Carolinas, paralyzed the 
Confederacy. Then came the capitulation of Petersburg; then 
the fall of Richmond; then General Lee laid down his sword 
at Appomattox, and civil strife was done, and peace reigned 
again. Liberty was established; the Union was preserved, 
"one and indissoluble." 

Then came the awful tragedy, the last spasmodic convulsion 
of expiring hate, which brought to his grave one of the truest, 
noblest, most patriotic, and exalted souls that ever graced God's 
footstool. But Lincoln's work was done; "he had fought his 
good fight, he had finished his course," and thereafter there 
was laid up for him a crown of immortal glory that should 
fade not away, down through all the ages time should last. 

The period of Lincoln's life dating from his nomination for 
the Senatorship of Illinois and terminating with his death 
may be likened to the mountain top towering above the 
clouds, visible to all lovers of liberty wheresover dispersed 
around the universe; but to-night we desire to call back to 
our remembrance something of his personality and his charac- 
teristics; we desire to know something of his struggles and his 
ambitions, as well as their magnificent fulfillment. 

The compiler of the Dictionary of Congress, while preparing 
that work for publication in 1858, wrote to Mr. Lincoln the 
usual request for a sketch of his life, and in repty received a 
note containing this: — 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 143 

"Born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin Co., Kentucky. Education, 
defective. Profession, a lawyer. Have been Captain of a 
Company of Volunteers in the Black Hawk War. Been Post- 
master of a very small office. Four times a member of the 
Illinois Legislature, and a member of the Lower House of 
Congress. Yours, etc., 

"A. Lincoln." 

This very modest record, written by himself, perhaps out- 
lines in a rough way his modest career up to the year 1858, 
but between the lines we read the unwritten story of poverty 
and ambition; of limitation of opportunity, coupled with a 
powerful determination to conquer the limitations of his en- 
vironment; of honesty of heart and integrity of purpose. 

His early life was taken up with the usual duties that fall 
to the lot of a boy raised on a frontier farm. When Abraham 
was between seven and eight years old, his father removed 
from Kentucky to Illinois. At ten years of age his mother 
died. Poverty, but without distress, was the condition of the 
Lincoln family; hard work, and plenty of it, was Abraham's 
portion, with no time to waste on schooling, his entire school 
experience amounting to less than one year, yet somehow in 
the intervals between his different employments as farm- 
laborer, rail-splitter, flatboat-man, and clerk in a country 
store, he learned to read and write — and think. 

He tells us himself that the proudest moment of his life w T as 
when he was elected captain of a company of volunteers in the 
Black Hawk war. After his company was disbanded on the 
termination of the war in 1832, he was nominated for the 
legislature of Illinois on the Whig ticket, but was defeated by 
the Democratic candidate; but, nothing daunted, he ran again 
in the subsequent campaign, and was elected, and was also 
elected in the three succeeding campaigns. 

During his legislative period he studied law, and Was ad- 
mitted to practice in 1836. In 1837 he opened his office in 
Springfield, whither the capital of Illinois was removed in 
1839. From that time till 1847, Lincoln's time was thor- 
oughly taken up in the study and practice of the law, and 
many volumes could be filled with the anecdotes and stories 
told by him and of him. 



144 DUNCAN E. McKINLAY. 

In 1846 he was elected to the national House of Representa- 
tives, where he served until 1849; then retired again to pri- 
vate life until 1858, when his nomination against Douglas 
again brought him prominently into politics. 

There is nothing in this story of Lincoln's life up to 1858 
that differs very materially from the experience of thousands 
of American boys and men; the difference came in the use 
Lincoln made of his experiences and development. 

Regarding his personal appearance, quoting from his own 
autobiography again, he says: — 

"If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it 
may be said, I am in height six feet four inches, nearly; lean 
in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and eighty 
pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair and gray 
eyes. No other marks or brands recollected." 

And he might have added, kindliness and truth and honesty 
beaming from those gray eyes, and lines denoting strength, 
but tenderness, power, and love crossing his homely yet noble 
countenance. 

As a lawyer, Lincoln was distinguished for his ability and 
success in jury trials. Though a great student of law, he 
varied his studies by including poetry, history, natural phi- 
losophy, chemistry, and astronomy. He was also a keen 
reader of newspapers and current literature. 

Judge David Davis, one of the most competent of the circuit 
judges of that time, says of him: "In all the elements that 
constitute a great lawyer, he had few equals. He seized the 
strong points of a cause, and presented them with clearness 
and great compactness. A^s a lawyer, Lincoln would have 
ranked, in time, for his ability alone, among the greatest of 
the land." 

The prominent features of his mental and moral composi- 
tion were honesty, love of justice, sympathy for the unfortu- 
nate, an unbounded love for liberty, and an intense loyalty 
for his country. 

And so this remarkable boy and man for forty years busied 
himself in an humble way, laying the foundations of character 
and developing physical, mental, and moral strength against 
the day when much would be required of him. In all these 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 145 



forty years he toiled as does the coral insect away below the 
level of the ocean, but in the fullness of time there came forth 
the splendid result. 

Considering the accomplishments of Lincoln, perhaps the 
most remarkable of all was the mastery he gained in the ex- 
pression of thought through the medium of speech, without 
schooling in rhetoric or composition. His orations are quoted 
to-day wherever the English language is spoken as examples 
of style and power of expression. 

What language could more eloquently and patriotically ex- 
press the sentiments of a loyal American heart than his ora- 
tion dedicating the field of Gettysburg as the consecrated rest- 
ing-place of the noble dead who perished there! 

What power of tongue could more reverently utter faith in 
the all-wise purpose of Omnipotence than when, on his second 
inaugural, with the fury of war thundering around and about 
him, with the Union rocking on its very foundations, out of 
his bursting heart, he exclaimed: — 

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty 
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that 
it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two 
hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and 
until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid 
with another drawn with the sword, as was said three thou- 
sand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the 
Lord are true and righteous altogether.'" 

The years of Lincoln's toil and humble endeavor rounded 
out and developed his life and character, and made him strong 
and resourceful, so that when in God's chosen time he was 
called to stand for human rights and human liberty, even to 
stand within the fierce white light which beats upon the head 
of Columbia's uncrowned kings, he came with a sympathy for 
the hopes, the needs, and the aspirations of the common 
people. 

No other country could have produced exactly such a man; 
no other nation had a place for such a pure, gentle, noble 
character. When he came to the leadership of the nation he 
was ignorant, apparently, of the science of government; yet no 
man of modern times knew more about statesmanship, or had 



146 DUNCAN E. McKINLAY. 

more of the instincts of a soldier, excepting the cruelties, than 
he. He studied statecraft for the sole purpose of protecting 
the country; he made himself master of the science of war for 
the purpose of saving the Union. His patriotism was not 
bounded by the opportunities his country afforded him, but 
rather by what his country might do for others. His religion 
began with a study of the life of Christ, and ended only in the 
hope of a life beyond the grave. 

To sum it all, Lincoln's achievement and triumph was, first, 
to preserve the American republic, next, to lift up millions of 
the lowly and downtrodden of the earth and to give to the 
image of the Maker "carved in ebony" the same rights, the 
same privileges, the same opportunities, the same equality be- 
fore the law, enjoyed by his counterpart fashioned from ivory 
or alabaster. 

Lincoln's mission was to raise the standard of American 
citizenship, advance our American civilization to higher and 
better levels, and make more probable a better ultimate des- 
tiny for all mankind. 






D. EDWARD COLLINS. 

David Edward Collins was born at Cupar- Angus, Scotland, May 18, 
1850. He was educated at the universities of California, Edinburgh, 
Scotland, London, England, and Leipzig, Germany. Mr. Collins has 
filled the following positions : President of the California Bank, Oak- 
land ; president Bank of William Collins and Sons, Ventura ; rep- 
resentative of California on Executive Committee of National Kepubli- 
can League ; president of Young Men's Christian Association of Oak- 
land ; chairman of State Committee of Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciations of California ; commander of Oakland Commandery No. 11, 
Knights Templar. Among his notable addresses are the following: 
"Evolution," "Labor," "Movement towards Imperialism," "Anti- 
quity of Man," "History," "Mary, Queen of Scots," "Banks and 
Banking." 

GOVERNMENT. 

[Delivered before The Outlook Club of Oakland, December, 1900.] 

Government may be studied either with reference to its struc- 
ture or its functions, and it is only with the structure of govern- 
ment that we shall be concerned to-night. Oligarchy, as you 
know, is a government of the few, without characterization; 
aristocracy is a government of the few who are assumed to be 
the best, at least in some particulars. Educated on the west- 
ern frontier of this great republic, it is only natural that my 
mind should have been, as it was, steeped in democratic prin- 
ciples, and I was therefore greatly surprised when, as an 
American student in London, I listened to the first criticism I 
had ever heard of our American Declaration of Lndependence. 
"To me," said W. Stanley Jevons, "the preamble to the Ameri- 
can constitution has always seemed ludicrous. All men are 
not born free, because the care of the mother continues for 
many years; and they are not born equal, for there are inhe- 
rent differences, which cannot be disputed." And ever since, 
the iteration and reiteration of the urgent need of legislative 
reform has accentuated a natural leaning towards a modified 

147 



148 D. EDWARD COLLINS. 

democracy. Democracy is a government by the people, and 
every man's vote counts one; but even this great republic, 
with the nearest approach to an equality of opportunity for 
its citizens, cannot fail to recognize the congenital as well as 
social inequalities among its people. Environment will not 
adequately explain the differences among men; for if such 
were the case, why did only a few men like Garrison, and Lin- 
coln, and Beecher appear during our Civil War? The times 
were stirring; the hopes of men were great; moral and educa- 
tional instruction was almost universal; and yet but few rose 
above the common level. Perhaps the common level had been 
lifted up, and this we may not gainsay; nevertheless, with 
compulsory education — an education far surpassing anything 
known in the days of Pericles, or even of Queen Elizabeth — 
no Phidias arose to give the semblance of life to dull, dead 
stone, and no Shakespeare came again to discover the deepest 
recesses of the human heart. Above the common ranges there 
are Shastas and Monts Blanc. Not only so, but our attention 
is called again and again to the fact that important history 
has been made in small states. Our ethical thought largely 
originated in Palestine; Phoenicia gave us an alphabet; Greece 
set ideals in art and philosophy; and Saxony, Switzerland, 
and Scotland preserved for us the blessings of the Reforma- 
tion. And if this be true, may it not be accounted for by the 
solidarity of the nation and the concert of action among its 
best minds? May not a nation be overgrown? The dexterity 
of the swordfish is sometimes more than a match for the un- 
wieldy power of the whale. Whether in individual or national 
life, continued existence is determined by the aptitude and dex- 
terity with which the various problems of society are handled. 
Evidently, competition does, and seemingly will continue to, 
operate as a permanent factor in civilization. In industrial 
life, the improved article displaces the inferior; the typewriter 
supplants the pen; the railroad renders useless the pony ex- 
press. The coterie of inventors find the competitive principle 
present among them, no less than the hod-carriers. And when 
the professional and speculative fields are entered, the same 
principle applies with equal, if not superior, force. Lister rev- 
olutionizes surgery, and Simpson laughs at all previous efforts 



GOVERNMENT. 149 

for the alleviation of pain. Darwin and Wallace struggle for 
supremacy of thought in the field of evolution, and Herbert 
Spencer rises like a giant in the midst of his detractors. Like- 
wise, constitutions vie with one another in presenting ideals of 
government, and are made or modified to meet the increasing 
needs of progressive civilization; and their value is severely 
tested by the administration and the actualities of nations. 
We' may premise, however, that forms of government shade 
into one another to such an extent that some monarchies are 
really aristocracies, and some aristocracies are assuming or 
are fast approaching democratic forms. The American con- 
stitution was framed by a group of the finest minds which this 
country has yet produced; but already that monumental work 
has been amended and modified from its original intention; for 
its rigidity does not permit the expansion which complicated 
modern society demands. It was more or less of an experi- 
ment, and many hesitated to blaze out this new pathway in 
government. Even Hamilton dared to say, " I acknowledge I 
do not think favorably of republican government; but I 
address my remarks to those who do, in order to prevail on 
them to tone their government as high as possible. " The re- 
public set itself the task of raising the standard of the people 
and propagating virtue; and it must be evident that under a 
purely democratic form the standard cannot rise much, if any, 
above the average life. Indeed, during the long and tedious 
discussions upon the framework of the constitution, much was 
said about the virtue and moral sense of the masses, and it 
was predicted that in this vast and growing nation no abiding 
and exalted public opinion would prevail. Dickinson, in argu- 
ing against the property qualifications of electors, seems to 
have given expression to the general thought of the framers of 
the constitution, in these words: "I doubt the policy of inter- 
weaving into a republican constitution a veneration of wealth. 
A veneration for poverty and virtue is the object of republican 
encouragement. No man of merit should be subjected to dis- 
abilities in a republic, where merit is understood to form the 
great title to public trust, honors, and rewards." Well, this 
constitution has been tried for more than a hundred years, 
and the governments of the civilized nations are gradually 



150 D. EDWARD COLLINS. 

being won over to a modified republican form. Republics, at 
least in name, exist almost everywhere, and are patterned 
largely upon the American plan. The bi-cameral legislature 
of England, and qualified representation, now extended to 
universal suffrage, form prominent features in nearly all gov- 
ernments. This general constitutional trend has been felt in 
all parts of the world; even staid and conservative England 
has felt the advancing movement, and by various reform bills 
since 1832 has almost, if not altogether, passed over from an 
aristocracy to a modified democracy. And yet some form of 
oligarchical government, it must be admitted, has gone hand in 
hand with stability and national permanence. Without any 
appeal to history, we might naturally expect that a moderate 
oligarchy would be more stable than a government entirely 
subject to democratic caprice and sudden changes of sentiment. 
Not seeking to enter upon historic details to establish this 
position, you will permit me to present a concise statement on 
the subject from a competent authority. "After the fall of the 
tyrants, pure democracy was introduced at Athens, but it fell 
into obvious and hopeless collapse before it had existed a cen- 
tury. On the other hand, the constitution of Lycurgus main- 
tained the greatness of Sparta for five centuries. The similar 
constitution of Crete and the equally aristocratic constitution 
of Carthage can boast of equal durability. In fact, history 
proves that aristocracy, by making stability the essential prin- 
ciple of their organization, can maintain themselves and the 
state much longer than democracies can preserve the rule of 
the demos." The underlying principle of oligarchy, that a few 
should lead and govern, has indeed been at the foundation of 
all government. From the days of patriarchal and tribal rule 
to the present complicated governments of the Czar of Russia 
and the Queen of England, this principle has played an essen- 
tial part. This is merely a truism, as it would be impossible 
in a large nation to have a majority of the people present in 
any assembly to participate in legislation. In place of such 
impossible assemblies, the American constitution provides that 
properly accredited delegates or representatives should form a 
legislature for enacting into law the wishes and demands of 
their constituencies. Each representative bears a mandate 






GOVERNMENT. 151 

from the people, and only in accordance to the fidelity with 
which it is executed may he hope for continued place and 
prestige. No country, perhaps, is readier to recognize and 
reward merit than America; but merit may have various sig- 
nifications. The man who can successfully carry a measure 
through Congress undoubtedly has merit; so has the man who 
is possessed of the genius to draft a wise tariff bill, or who can 
propose an acceptable solution of the complicated money ques- 
tion. Merit is applicable, then, either to the man who has the 
wisdom to draft the bills or to him who has the practical 
energy to secure their passage. It is merit of the latter kind, 
however, which usually receives the rewards. The men who 
bring things to pass — the bosses in our cities and the lobbyists 
in our legislative halls — possess that kind of merit which is 
politically recognized in this country. Government by the 
few may even please a republic, but we earnestly desire that 
those few should be our best and brainiest men. I would com- 
mend to your consideration a democratic oligarchy or an 
oligarchical democracy as a form of government, but it must be 
an oligarchy of our best and most competent citizens as a 
governing class. It is true that this governing class must be 
representative; but shall they be representative simply of 
well-defined and practically barren and unpopulated districts? 
or shall they not rather "represent every element and every 
interest in the nation in proportion to its relation to the 
whole " ? Our representatives must be those who represent men 
rather than territory. But the ideal is more easily outlined 
than attained; destructive is almost always a simpler matter 
than constructive criticism. If the men whom we recognize 
as truly great and fully qualified to be in official position are 
still private citizens, how shall we proceed to advance them to 
position? I think investigation will support the common 
belief, that our great men either do not enter, or certainly 
do not remain in, public life; on the other hand, it is prover- 
bial that when a man has no particular calling he still deems 
himself competent to conduct an insurance business or to hold 
office. In business, in fraternal organizations, in fact in every 
department of social or industrial life, a man is advanced in 
office according as he is qualified to perform its duties; but 



152 D- EDWARD COLLINS. 

too often in politics no qualification is deemed necessary. By- 
refusing to recognize special fitness and ability in a political 
aspirant, and by short tenure of office, the formation of a gov- 
erning class is successfully prevented; but would there be any 
real danger from an educated governing class? The tyranny 
of class, whether political or social, might be overcome by 
destroying exclusive barriers. The sting of privileged aris- 
tocracy in England was removed and the aristocratic prestige 
maintained by recruiting its ranks from the best of the lower 
classes. First-class ability must have scope for its exercise, 
and few talented men care to be simply the mouthpiece of a 
constituency. "This is a marked advantage of aristocracy," 
says a writer, "over democracy, because the latter may too 
easily degrade both their magistrates and the state itself to the 
level of common life." The Civil War brought to a conclusion 
the question of national existence and emphasized the need of 
a strong central government; and against any possible en- 
croachment of a strong administration stands a healthy and 
energetic public opinion: the critic and philanthropist are ever 
ready to apply the goad to any malversation. With increasing 
years, the demands for centralization have increased, and the 
American people welcome and admire any strong and able 
occupant of the White House. Even when we disagree with 
his policy, we still admire his strength; for we are naturally 
hero- worshipers. To regularly secure such an executive, would 
not the restoration of the original power of the electoral college 
materially assist? Our great national conventions are cum- 
bersome, and are liable to be stampeded, as in 1896, upon very 
dangerous ground. In the selection of the man who is to 
govern this great republic, should not wise and mature delib- 
eration take the place of a choice in the midst of the most 
inflammable material? And to further strengthen the hands 
of an able executive, would it not be wise to choose men for 
the Cabinet who are able to exert a strong and even direct 
influence on Congress? The English method of choosing the 
heads of departments for ministers may be questioned; but, at 
any rate, wisdom would suggest the choice of men for the min- 
isterial office who have had large experience in the conduct of 
legislation, rather than men who, however expert in the man- 



GOVERNMENT. 153 

agement of industrial affairs, have had no such experience. 
Legislation requires much wisdom; for its remote, no less than 
its direct, effect may prove advantageous or harmful to the 
nation. The by-product, so to speak, of legislation is often its 
chief product. 

Again, our corporate methods of doing business somewhat 
lessen the responsibility of the individual, and this initiative 
is gladly welcomed into politics. With recent rapid urban 
growth, our cities have become the determinative forces in 
politics, and their management largely determines the com- 
plexion of both state and Federal government. A very gen- 
eral effort is now being made to introduce substantial reform 
into our municipalities, and there is a tendency to fix official 
responsibility. In this reform we can all take part, and with 
the better management of our cities we may hope for an im- 
proved political condition throughout the nation. Our own 
city recently gave a striking illustration of the want of official 
responsibility, when " an exasperated public went about like a 
roaring lion, seeking whom it might devour, and found no 
one." Certainly, the province and function of each indi- 
vidual office-holder should be clearly defined, and then he 
should be held strictly responsible for the performance of 
his duty. I am inclined to think that an improvement 
would result from increasing the duties and the power of 
the mayor so as to make him more personally responsible 
for the government of his city. Then, again, the salaries 
of officials should be large enough to induce the right kind of 
men to enter public life, or, still better perhaps, no salaries 
should be paid. " In fact," says an economist, " by establish- 
ing non-payment of legislators we introduce an oligarchical 
element into government, and effect in some degree the kind of 
fusion between oligarchy and democracy which Aristotle rec- 
ommended as the best practical solution of the war of classes 
in the city-states of Greece." The spirit of oligarchy is about 
us; the desire and effort to limit suffrage and to represent 
minorities are only oligarchical expedients; the election of 
Senators by the legislature, indeed, is the realization of the 
very principle of oligarchy: why cannot that principle be car- 
ried into all departments of government? And, in conclusion, 



154 D. EDWAED COLLINS. 

permit me to quote from Henry Sidgwick, with whose general 
views I am glad to find myself in accord. "According to my 
view," he says, "the representative system in its best form will 
realize to a substantial extent the principle of aristocracy in 
combination with the principle of democracy." 



I 



WILLIAM R. DAVIS. 

William R. Davis was born in Washington County, Iowa, February 
26, 1850; arrived in California, "across the plains," in 1854; attended 
the public schools at Santa Rosa ; entered the University of California, 
1870; was graduated, A. B., from the University, 1874; principal 
teacher, Washington College, Alameda County, 1875 ; received the de- 
gree of A. M. from the University of California, 1877; admitted to the 
supreme court of California, 1878 ; married to Miss M. Otteline Towne, 
1879, the family now consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Davis and two sons ; 
admitted to the United States district and circuit courts, 1880; presi- 
dent of the Alumni Association, 1880-81 ; admitted to the supreme court 
of the United States, 1886 ; mayor of Oakland, 1887-88 ; president Ala- 
meda County Republican League, 1896 ; president Alumni Association, 
1896, 1897, 1898 ; Presidential elector (Republican) in the election of 
1900; still engaged in the practice of the law, at Oakland, California. 

ALL'S WELL. 

[Memorial Day address, delivered at Santa Rosa, California, May 30, 
1900.] 

Fellow-Citizens, Neighbors, — A generation ago, we were 
almost as two peoples in settlement, traditions, purposes and 
institutions. The flag stood for a republic, as against mon- 
archy, but not yet for equal human rights, nor for actual 
unity. 

It is with regret, but I remember well an unhappy and 
dramatic scene which was enacted a generation ago in the 
shade of the old oaks which then stood in the Plaza here, 
where the court-house stands to-d^j. The body of the Union 
colonel, Rod Matheson, who fell at the front, had been sent 
home for burial at Healdsburg. That da}^, the military escort 
which accompanied his remains, which were borne in a casket 
draped with the Stars and Stripes, halted here in the shade of 
the trees, in Colonel Matheson's last earthly journey — from 
the battle-field to the grave. The scene made an impression 
yet uneffaced. The escort guard on duty; the casket wrapped 
in the folds of the flag; the body of that brave soldier in the 

155 



156 WILLIAM E. DAVIS. 

blue uniform of a colonel of the army of the United States; 
the people viewing the remains; a sense of solemnity in the 
air; and, over all, the oaks, their shelter and shade bestowed 
alike upon the living and the dead. But, unhappily, there 
were murmurs of discord there, and whispered words of dis- 
respect to the flag even, whose supremacy was then denied, 
and whose sway was resisted by armed force. To-day, a tem- 
ple of justice, which represents law, order and peace, stands 
on the very spot where then murmurs of resentment were 
heard; no flag for any American now but the flag of the Union; 
no other floats from American masthead in any waters or on 
American territory in any sea, or over a foot of American soil 
across the continent, — only the Stars and Stripes, which 
draped that soldier's casket under the oaks, emblem of America 
reunited, whose shining folds inspire the living, exalt the dying, 
and enfold the dead. 

It is said that human life is too short to harbor resentment, 
and it is. Passion passes away; reason remains, and good 
will returns to our larger life, individual and national. These 
flowers, unplucked, are nature's good will to the world, — in 
the hands of the children, the new generation's tribute of good 
will to the veterans; and in the veterans' hands, the good will 
of brave men surviving, to brave men of both armies fallen. 
No ceremony has the sun ever shone on more touching, or 
which makes more for the brotherhood of man, than that of 
the Union veteran laying flowers upon the graves of the Con- 
federate dead, and of the Confederate laying flowers upon the 
graves of the Union dead. Though there be a God of battles, 
the chivalrous deeds of war are less pleasing in His sight than 
these loving deeds of America's Decoration Day, when, though 
empty sleeves remain, hearts are full of that good will which 
the world awaits to constitute its millennium. 

We are all one people. It is ordained. Dissentient, we 
were unhappy; in war, self-devastating; in peace we prosper; 
in unity we are invincible. At the beginning, like blood in 
Massachusetts and in Virginia stood alike for Independence. 
The lips of Patrick Henry in the little church in Virginia 
uttered the electrifying words of independence which made 
him the son of every colony and brought the colonies to their 






ALL 'S WELL. 157 

feet; and the eye of Paul Revere at Boston caught the signal- 
light in the church belfry which sent horse and man flying to 
the homesteads of the colonists at Lexington and Concord, 
where oppression was first confronted with the incarnate vis- 
age of American independence. 

Massachusetts and Virginia were but types. From Virginia 
the flames spread, and from Boston the fire swept forth, until 
every colony was fused into the fire-born union of America, 
which to-day stands forth the great republic of mankind. 

In wealth, they were but pioneers; in numbers, but three 
millions; in territory, occupying but a narrow strip along the 
shore of the Atlantic. But in liberty-loving conscience, in 
Paul Revere and Patrick Henry, in the Washingtons, the 
Lees, the Hancocks, of that beginning, in consecrated steel 
uplifted in the Revolution, that gallant band stood for the 
liberties of these seventy-five millions, for the wealth which 
has made America the industrial captain of the nations, and 
for the strength which has raised it from a nation of the con- 
tinent to a power in the earth. 

There is a force greater than force itself. The superior 
forces of Great Britain were overcome by the humble but 
mightier force, man's love of freedom, which moved as inspira- 
tion in the lips that spoke in the little church in Virginia, 
which shone as deliverance in the signal-lights in the Boston 
belfry, and which transformed ragged colonists into Freedom's 
princes at Lexington and Bunker Hill, on the bluffs of the 
St. Lawrence, and at Valley Forge. The North and South 
were there, seven years together, battle-tried, shattered, ragged, 
decimated, hungry, footsore — but they were victorious, in the 
love of liberty dedicating to the world a republic and to us a 
country. 

The constitution was framed. Nine colonies adopted it, and 
then thirteen. Since the dawn of civilization, all the hands of 
men given to gathering private gain, in Egypt, India, Greece, 
Rome, Europe, in England even, have never accomplished a 
work of such immeasurable value to man as the constitution 
of the United States. The difference is, all the others related 
to but individual possessions, which are transitory; while 
this is consecrated to the general concern, to liberty's business 
in the world, the continuing progress of the race. 



158 WILLIAM R. DAVIS. 

They grew from three millions to thirty-three millions. 
Then strife overrode forbearance. The individual possessions 
of those of one section, legal but unnatural, blinded some; zeal 
striking upon flint fired others. It was 1861. That dividing 
line separated North and South, — a line now obliterated for- 
ever. There was boasting sometimes of a superior martial 
spirit or of superior valor; but no veteran survives, Union or 
Confederate, who does not honor the courage which then con- 
fronted him; and all the world knows that from 1861 to 1865, 
on both sides, blood as courageous as ever baptized the earth 
leaped forth with equal valor. 

France drills her sons from boyhood in the schools of war. 
Germany rears her youth with weapons in their hands. Great 
Britain gathers in her military camps the flower of every gen- 
eration. Russia's horse and foot patrol an empire and crowd 
its frontiers. The landscape of Europe is the barracks of 
military hosts. But our country in 1861 turned citizens into 
armies, whose bravery and character surpassed the standards 
of nations whose profession is war. There were Lyon, Ells- 
worth and Baker, Meade, Thomas and Halleck, Sherman, 
Sheridan, and Grant; and their armies were of fiber like that 
of the commanders. Yet Alexander H. Stephens, Robert E. 
Lee, and Stonewall Jackson were blood of this people too. 
The hills still tell the name of Sheridan to those who visit the 
valley of the Shenandoah; history forbids the hand of time to 
efface the record of the march of Sherman to the sea; marble 
and the recorded story have made imperishable the fame of 
the hero of Appomattox. Yet, Stephens, last to step without 
the Union, was first to return, beseeching his people to renew 
their loyalty as in the beginning; Lee's was a character com- 
posed of the virtues which this nation teaches to its children; 
and those who met Stonewall Jackson and his men know what 
the appellation "Stonewall" means. Honest minds differed. 
Tens of thousands of honest hearts from South and North 
went down beneath the sod to join the vast Grand Army, 
attaining through portals of clay their peace eternal. Then 
the noblest figure of them all, viewed askance by half his 
country then, to-day exalted in the conscience of the world, 
went down to join the others. The fireside light fell upon the 






ALL 'S WELL. 159 

face of the boy Abraham as he read the stor}^ of slavery; but 
in manhood Abraham Lincoln brought the light of freedom to 
the hearthstone of every slave. His business in 1861 had 
become the awful business of liberty, — the preservation of the 
American Union. Lincoln, bowed down under the weight of 
the cross of disunion, a light not of this world in his counte- 
nance, ascended this nation's Calvary and made the sacrifice 
which set three million human beings free. In boyhood, con- 
science; in manhood, the general concern supreme; under the 
iron shadows of war, emancipation; in death, immortal. How 
the master sums it up, — 

"The elements 
So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up 
And say to all the world, ' This was a man ! '" 

The strife is ended. The boys in blue and the boys in gray 
alike sleep on. The mantle of spring and the mantle of winter 
are spread over all alike. To-day, while remembrance twines 
the ivy around the monuments, and love blooms in the roses 
by the slabs at Arlington, remembrance as fond climbs in the 
honeysuckles that creep over the rude pile of uncut stones 
above other dead at Richmond, and love there breaks forth in 
the blossoms. A Power almighty has taught us to see our- 
selves as we never did before; and it would seem that the God 
of battles need never again, by means of strife between Ameri- 
cans, exhibit to the world the quality of American valor. Side 
by side they were at Bunker Hill; side by side at New Orleans; 
side by side at Chapultepec; face to face, alas! at Gettysburg: 
but side by side, again, at Manila and Santiago, — may 
America's sons forever, side by side, march on to the fulfill- 
ment of the destiny of this republic. 

As the status of Europe is armament, the business of Amer- 
ica is peace. The Union preserved, the American people re- 
sumed the works of peace. Territory was populated; enterprise 
advanced; rivers were deepened to navigation; harbors con- 
structed and protected; railroads, the modern steel rivers of 
commerce, were built; new states were admitted; prosperity at- 
tended industry; wealth and numbers multiplied; ingenuity in- 
spired invention and invention attacked nature; for feet we use 
the flying wheel; water and fire bear us across the continent 



160 WILLIAM R. DAVIS. 

with a speed which spurns the eagle's wing; the untiring cable 
climbs the hills, and is in turn displaced by the invisible force 
which flies along the wire; we speak half-way across the Union; 
we write, and it is transcribed across continents and seas; the 
flail and the ox-cart are gone; the early ship is a derelict log 
behind the greyhounds of the ocean; the Indian's signal-fire 
on the hilltop is an extinguished hieroglyphic; the signet- 
rings of all the mediaeval barons are not so much as one type 
in the printing-press of America; religion, art, history, science, 
knock at every door; the waters of knowledge run free; all 
the schools of the nation are open, the school of experience, 
the great school of the industries themselves, the myriad- 
teaching school of the free press, the church free from the 
domination of the state, the free public schools in every settle- 
ment and city, and the free university in every state, the con- 
summation of the nation's instrumentalities of enlightenment 
in the great republic. 

Human advance is accomplished fact. The nation stands 
erect; the mists of sectional tradition and the memories of 
strife swept away from before its face; its countenance stead- 
fast to the sunrise light of the new century; its purpose, the 
betterment of man; its brain without a fetter and its heart 
without a fear. 

Has it been said that valor has degenerated? The answer 
is already recorded. When forbearance was taxed beyond 
human endurance, this people said to monarchy, Oppression 
endeth here — and the present generation tore the swarthy 
hand of Spain from the throat of prostrate Cuba. For this 
generation's valor the regulars and the volunteers have an- 
swered at San Juan; Hobson and the little band, under the 
iron hail of batteries, taking the Merrimac on what seemed the 
waters of annihilation to plant her in the jaws of death, have 
answered at Santiago; under the brazen sun of the tropics, 
in open field, in jungle, trench, and river, the boys of 1898 
and 1900 have answered, and are answering still, in the defiles 
and morasses of Luzon; for the navy, which at daylight 
steamed through hidden mines, over treacherous volcanoes in 
hostile waters, and sank half a nation's fleet, then supped on 
coffee and sank the other half, Dewey and the lads of the sea 



ALL 'S WELL. 161 

have answered at Manila. There is not one American valor 
old and another new; it is the same, continuing. The spirit 
of the nation sees all as one, — one origin, one country, one 
destiny. To the northeast the shores of Maine against the 
Atlantic; to the northwest, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands 
against the Arctic; to the south, Porto Rico in the waters of 
the gulf; to the west, the islands of Hawaii in the waters of 
the Pacific; and to the west yet farther, — where the Occident 
of America becomes the orient, — the Philippines, which soon 
shall learn that the sword they resist is not the sword of a new 
oppressor come to strike down, but the sacred blade of freedom 
come to liberate and lift up. Leonidas and the Spartan band 
had valor at Thermopylae; bravery poured out its libation at 
Balaklava; the earth received its priceless treasure at Bunker 
Hill; the insatiable field of Gettysburg drank deep the goblets 
of valor's reddest vintage. Yet history cannot turn the pages 
over and read a story of bravery to surpass the deeds of valor 
done at San Juan, at Santiago, in Luzon, or at Manila. Battle 
cannot drive, fire cannot burn, earth's chemistry cannot filter, 
the valor out of Anglo-Saxon blood, nor any earthly power 
stay the advance of the Anglo-Saxon breast. Valor remains 
to us, and the republic endures to us and to generations yet 
unborn. 

The veterans of the Revolution and those of the War of 1812 
have passed away; the ranks of the veterans of the Mexican 
War are thin, and yours are thinning. You who remain can 
but open your ranks to those returning from the Spanish War, 
T>he junior veterans of 1898-1900, all henceforth taking the 
I same step, the swing of the Greater Grand Army of the Re- 
i public. And, comrades, old and young, know this: that the 
: republic which has honored your deeds, aided your infirmity, 
and cared for the widow and orphan, will, when the volley is 
fired for you, honor, aid, and care for the few or the many still 
surviving. Some, unmindful, speak of pensions as a burden. 
They are — but it is the splendid burden of self-respect and 
gratitude which this republic bears upon its mighty shoulders 
and with generous hand pays, as their just due, to those who 
suffered that it might be strong, and to the widows and orphans 
of those who died that it might live. 



162 WILLIAM R. DAVIS. 

There are things permanent as well as things transient. 
Wealth can make strong, but it cannot make great. Character 
alone can assure perpetuity. We live in a day of straining 
activity. Commercialism occupies a million brains. Shall it 
exclude thought for the general concern? Shall commercialism 
nationalize avarice and degrade national character? Have no 
fear. Here and there it may encroach, but it cannot destroy 
the nation's character. Americans understand that it is the 
steel frame within the building which supports the lofty struc- 
ture, not the visible shell. With some, individual concerns 
are allowed to put away the general concern as a distant 
thing; with some, private business may be aggrandized as if 
to challenge the higher business of government; with some, 
new forms of national duty or new phases of a people's indus- 
trial development may awaken apprehension. But fear need 
seek no foothold here. The advance of man is accomplished 
fact. The love of liberty and equality, here organized into 
government and breathed in every breath of the lives of sev- 
enty-five millions of people, cannot be ground down nor torn 
from the minds and hearts of such a people. Neither Ameri- 
can love of equality nor the American genius for government 
has been exhausted yet. The Anglo-Saxon sense of justice 
and that genius for government will devise and apply every 
governmental agency and restriction necessary to American 
welfare and perpetuity — continental and oceanward. The 
writings, the books, the statutes, might be obliterated from the 
face of the earth: the race has reached a stage in man's 
advance from oppression into widening freedom, where the 
knowledge and the love of self-government cannot be driven 
from the brain nor banished from the heart of the Anglo- 
Saxon. 

The little republic in the heart of the Alps maintains itself 
secure in the hearts of the Swiss people. France erects a re- 
public in the shadow of the castles of monarchical Europe. 
The Queen of England has less remaining of the ancient 
powers descending by birth than those already surrendered. 
The next King of England will find himself possessed of station 
by birthright, but the English people possessed of the power 
behind the throne by human right. Tyranny, even in Russia, 



ALL 'S WELL. 163 

no longer goes unchallenged. The human race is out of the 
night. From the depths of time the workings of nature have 
brought out of chaos order and a habitation for man. So 
from the night of barbarism, from mediaeval shadows, from 
3'ester day's oppression, man has come forward from animalism 
to intelligence, from intelligence to reason, and from reason 
into the daylight of human liberty, — this great republic, with 
all its imperfections, the defender, exemplar, and herald of 
Anglo-Saxon civilization in its course among the races of 
mankind. Nothing but the iron hoofs of the awful devastation 
of the wrath of the Almighty can drive liberty from the soil of 
America or sweep man's institutions of self-government from 
the earth. 

When the King of Spain granted to favored grandees here 
so many leagues of land loosely bounded by mountain ranges, 
canons, and inlets, it was found that the grants did not con- 
nect and that the title to leagues of ungranted land remained 
in the sovereign. This ungranted overplus was called "so- 
brante." And then he made grants of the overplus lands to 
still other grandees. These are the "sobrante" lands of the 
Spanish reign. In the life of every individual American there 
is a sobrante beyond his individual concerns or private gain. 
That overplus in the lives of all good citizens belongs and re- 
sponds to the general concern; it constitutes the resources of 
patriotism of the republic. It is not enough that the separate 
individuals be clothed and fed, nor that as separate individuals 
they store gain and accumulate. As the country has its ma- 
terial resources, so beyond all daily businesses, in this sobrante 
of the lives of the millions composing this nation, in this over- 
plus of man-life, abide the thought of country, the love of jus- 
tice, the determination to defend our institutions and territory, 
the gratitude due the faithful in war and in peace, constituting 
the abiding spirit of the nation's life, the source and strength 
of the country's patriotism. The strength of wealth pushes 
forward. The spirit of patriotism uplifts. Terrestrial gravita- 
tion can do no more than draw down the material fabric of the 
flag; but the celestial gravitation of the flag itself draws to it 
and uplifts every heart in this vast nation. Let insurrection 
raise its head, or foreign foe but lift its hand to smite America, 



164 WILLIAM R. DAVIS. 

and the wondrous power in the Stars and Stripes, gathering 
defenders to itself, will assemble from North and South, from 
continent and sea, the countless hosts of reunited America 
invincible. 

I know that the course of nations is beset with difficulties. 
New problems will arise to confront us and old ones will re- 
appear; all mankind is not of the highest; administration is 
imperfect, as is our common human nature; in the unfolding 
of time, new national duties have entered unbidden, and new 
responsibilities are already upon us. But the brain, the con- 
science, the genius for government animating this nation of 
seventy-five millions of Americans, can overcome difficulties, 
solve problems, repress encroachments where they challenge 
the rightful authority of government, keep aloft here its banner 
and vindicate yonder its starry herald of civilization, — and 
still the depths of the nation's patriotism will be unfathomed, 
still the deep ocean of America's devotion to liberty rock secure 
in its mighty bed. 



TORCH OR SHADOW — WHICH? 165 



TORCH OR SHADOW— WHICH? 

[Address as president of the Alumni Association of the University of 
California, delivered at San Francisco, May 12, 1897.] 

Fellow- Alumni, — It all depends. If a man is only a fierce 
ant striving and struggling in the grass, success is one thing, — 
his storehouse, riches, estates. If he takes the grade up the 
mountain- side and looks from its turns, success is another 
thing, — the storehouse becomes but a pantry for his hunger; 
riches, apparel to his body, shelter to his age; and estates, in- 
strumentalities of his expanding purposes. 

There is a constitution not framed by man. It is written in 
visible nature, and in nature invisible too. We come under 
its sway, — whence, no science tells. It is the law of things. 
We join the terrestrial drift, the cosmic drift, which it per- 
vades, and progress — whither, no learning tells. It is the law 
of things. What surrounds and accompanies us is named en- 
vironment. To this, research, learning, method, bend them- 
selves until the human eye spells out the microcosm and pene- 
trates all-holding space. The intellectual flower of every nation 
upon the earth, which thus far has come to flower, is question- 
ing, penetrating, conquering, this vast environment. It resists 
us; it molds us; it appals us. Yet we assail it and, here and 
there and yonder, in this science and that, in this law and 
that, we discover and master it. Of this pre-human and 
supra-human constitution of things it is a part that there is 
that which will assail, as well as that to be assailed. Environ- 
ment is the cosmic anvil; man, the living hammer. En- 
vironment, the banks; man, the river. Environment, the sky 
and landscape; man, the eagle who soars in one and scans the 
other. It is the law of things. The lower law is that of the 
anvil, resistance; the higher, that of the hammer, mastery. 
The lower, the law of inertia; the higher, that of the fountain 
flowing, the stream singing, the river serving. The lower law 
is but habitation and air; the higher is flight by wing, — vis- 
\i ion, the wider horizon and the deeper sky. 



166 WILLIAM R. DAVIS. 

It is the immutable law of things. A resisting environment 
is no more a part of the great constitution of things than is 
the law of man's mastery of it by purpose, discovery, appro- 
priation. Whether hope springs eternal in the human breast, 
it is more to the purpose that it is immutable law that the 
torch of conquest advancing upon environment is inextin- 
guishable in the hands of the human race. He who falters 
complaining before environment sounds earthy, not of the steel 
of the ringing hammer. He has not learned what force of 
human will there is in the one word, "notwithstanding." 

Notwithstanding an environment of abattis, I will assail it. 
It is here; but I, too, am here. It is the law; but so am I. 
It resists; but I overcome. It challenges; but I prevail. It 
is the constitution of things in part against me; but I, too, 
have the constitution of things with me. 

There is an awareness that is universal. The inanimate 
tendrils sway in the air like ringers reaching for support. 
One tendril touches the trellis, and the awareness in the vine 
takes hold of its support as a child clasps its father's hand. 
Who teaches the vine in the cellar to creep to the window? 
It is aware. Cut the roots of the locust ten feet deep in the 
earth, leave the excavation open, and the root becomes a stem, 
a foliage-bearing, flowering tree. I have seen it. Awareness 
in the root, a mere gatherer of nourishment in the dark, be- 
comes leaf, trunk, and flower in the light. There is an aware- 
ness, whether we wake or sleep, which renews and remakes 
our bodies for us. The unconscious eye is exposed to a fierce 
light, and the guard on duty at the pupil contracts it, closes 
the curtains, and shuts out the light, — awareness on guard. 
The yet unseeing linnets in the nest hear their mother's call, 
and the awareness in the fledglings tells them to open their 
mouths for food, which comes neither by road nor rail. There 
is an awareness in the unconscious mother-blood of the race, 
which changes it by loving alchemy when the time is fulfilled, 
and pours it as milk into the marble fountain, as well as there 
is awareness in the new-born, which turns its yet unfed lips 
for sustenance to that holy fountain, a mother's breast. 
Awareness universal, — unconscious and conscious. It is in 
the constitution of things. 



TORCH OR SHADOW — WHICH? 167 

Amidst all this stands man, aware of his environment, aware 
of the great constitution of things; that it has established 
around him resistance and mystery; that it has ordained, 
also, the uncovering of secrets, the progressive acquisition and 
jurisdiction of man, and has made him conscious of his power 
of conquest and dominion. Shall he not, in his conscious 
awareness, run to the light if a vine does, climb up enduring 
and uplifting supports if the blind tendril does, guard the 
higher spirit that he sees with if the pupil of the eye does, feed 
the helpless if the linnet does, and with conscious will turn 
strength into achievement if the unconscious mother-blood of 
woman turns itself into milk to strengthen the yet helpless 
lions of the race? 

If anything is true, it is true everywhere and forever that 
the sum of the angles of a triangle are equal to two right 
angles; that greater means more than less; that convergence 
is different from divergence; that every point is the center of 
an infinite sphere. But these are no more a part of the con- 
stitution of things, than that sympathy and antipathy are op- 
posite; that malevolence and benevolence part ways; that the 
giving of a cup of cold water is one thing, and a stab in the 
dark another; that selfishness deserts, unselfishness co-ope- 
rates and sacrifices, mercy forgives, and the torches of sen- 
tient intelligence give light to other kindred understandings. 
This constitution of things makes me think that the abstract 
laws of space and quantity are not the only perpetuities. 
There is no reason why greater should be more than less for- 
ever, and yet have benevolence, forever good, perish; nor why 
convergence should be different from divergence forever, and 
yet have unselfishness perish from constituted things; nor 
why light should be different from darkness forever, and yet 
there come a time when all sentient lights are extinguished 
from the cosmos, leaving its abstractions alone, the uncon- 
scious perpetuities, to endure. The mathematical perpetuities 
of the cosmos, perceived by the awareness of the intellect, are 
true through no greater lapse of time or wider reaches of space, 
than are the other laws perceived by the awareness of the un- 
derstanding which takes hold of them, call it what you will. 
This thought makes me think we do not perish. A cosmic 



168 WILLIAM E. DAVIS. 

jest it is, if the laws of quantity and direction are eternal, 
and the laws of sentient consciousness run out. 

I have said this toward a better understanding of what I 
conceive our companionship and brotherhood here to be. It 
is a high standard, an ideal? Yes. But as men lose their 
standards, is it not then that they enter into fruitless and sor- 
did struggles, — struggles which do not go to better human en- 
vironment nor to work out the perpetuities? The miser has 
abandoned all ideals. Two splendid things there are in this 
world, — a young man with an old head and an old man 
with a young heart. They are they who bring the world 
along and bring the race through. Pity is due to the man who 
has no ideal, or who, having abandoned it, fights a lifelong, 
selfish combat under an iron sky toward an empty horizon 
without a standard in the air. Michael Angelo said, Genius 
is eternal patience. He worked to a standard. Verdi put his 
finger upon silence, and it blossomed into harmony. Whether 
Minerva sprang full-panoplied from the brain of Jove, it does 
not matter. Wagner touched the keys of nothingness, and the 
world heard great music pealing upon the understanding, like 
waves of the ocean upon the beach. Such work is creation. 
Silence was, Harmony is: Nothingness was, surges of sentient 
life roll into existence. 

Apathy is easier than endeavor, but it is unworthy of salu- 
tation from the comrades of the standard. Apathy submits 
and sleeps, while William Tell stands forth for human liberty. 
Selfishness watches its hoard, while Washington and the men 
of the standard freeze in the Delaware and bleed at Valley 
Forge. What is an engine without that which makes it throb 
and move? Perfected inertia; no more. Flame is its blood; 
steam, its nerves. A man is no better. Educated only, he is 
the machine without the power, without the flame, without 
motion. Education can only teach the What of environment 
and the Why of things. Libraries are filled with this What 
and Why in multitudinous form and voluminous amount. 
Where is the flame, where is the steam, the purpose that fires, 
and the courage that impels? Equipment is inertia, unless 
the flame of purpose fires the man and the power of courage 
impels him. The world does not so much need equipment as 



TORCH OR SHADOW — WHICH? 169 

it needs men of the standard, of flame, of heart's blood. 
These it has needed from the beginning, needs now, every- 
where, — men of flame, the torches of the race. General 
Phil Kearny had the fire. When the colonel of a regiment 
rode up to him on the battle-field, where the line of battle was 
five miles long, and asked, "Where shall I get in, General?" 
Kearny replied, "Anywhere; it is magnificent fighting all 
along the line." That is the flame. No man can draw dia- 
gram and specifications of the duty and destiny of another. 
Get the torch first, man; its flash will discover in the battle- 
line of environment the point of attack, the opportunity, and 
the best destiny. 

Man needs plans and specifications, but he needs flame and 
heart more. Stonewall Jackson's was a blazing torch. In the 
final delirium before his dissolution, seeing in his dying vision 
a fancied river and the grateful shade beyond it, and imagin- 
ing the courageous strife suspended for the day, his loving 
heart said to his old comrades, " Let us cross over and rest in 
the shade of the trees." It was the hour, and that unfaltering 
heart crossed over. A light fell upon Saul of Tarsus in the 
Damascus road. In the twinkling of an eye he was Paul the 
torch of Christianity. The gentle firelight fell upon the boy 
Abraham, and then the flash of war upon the man, and in a 
twinkling Lincoln was the flaming sword of liberty, the torch 
of freedom for the race to follow. 

There is a conscious understanding like theirs which goes 
on wing as light and fire go. There is a flame like theirs; it 
is a part of the great constitution of things, inextinguishable 
in the race. It makes man's features shine, woman's counte- 
nance holy, and human character sublime. The man whom 
it inhabits has a standard; he seeks the perpetuities for his 
support, is aware of man's rightful dominion and destiny, re- 
veres the sacred flame in all ages and comrades, counts the 
race his brothers, and extends his courageous and unselfish 
hand to human uplift — the divinest gesture in the drama of 
the world. 

The question of questions is this: Which shall I be, — torch 
or shadow — which? 



REV. WILLIAM RADEU. 

The Rev. William Radek is by birth a Pennsylvania!!, by faith a 
Congregationalist, and by temperament and training a public speaker. 
After leaving the public schools, he studied in Pennington Seminary, 
New Jersey, and Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, graduating from the 
Theological Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, in 1891. He has held 
several pastorates successfully, and is now pastor of a prominent church 
in San Francisco. Mr. Rader began his public career early in life. He 
is in demand as a lecturer and platform speaker. He has made his 
mark not only as a preacher and orator, but has also gained merited 
recognition as the author of some valuable contributions to current lit- 
erature. " Uncle Sam ; or, The Reign of the Common People," printed 
here, is a condensed report of this popular lecture, and is a fair exam- 
ple of his style and method of treatment. This lecture has often been 
given, but never twice the same. 

UNCLE SAM; OR, THE REIGN OF THE COMMON 

PEOPLE. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, — Uncle Sam is the personification 
of the United States. The state was personified by Solomon 
in his declaration, " Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin 
is a reproach to any people"; by John Milton, who compared 
the state to a high Christian personage possessing all the 
functions and responsibilities of a human being; by Elisha 
Mulford, who defined the state as a moral organism; and by 
Louis XIV. of France, who exclaimed, "I am the state." 

In the popular representation of John Bull, the embodiment 
of England, and of Uncle Sam, the incarnation of the Ameri- 
can people and spirit, we have the more familiar personifica- 
tions of the state. By Uncle Sam is meant the average 
American citizen. He is not original, but derivative, — which 
is to say, he is not native to the soil. In his veins flows no ab- 
original blood. We are the heirs of the ages. All the rivers 
of history flow into the ocean of American life. We inherit all 
that has been. Among the contributions made to the Ameri- 

170 



UNCLE SAM. 171 

can character, and from which we derive our national charac- 
teristics, may be mentioned five distinct types. 

First is that of Sir Walter Raleigh, mentioned by Charles 
Kingsley and Dean Stanley as an important factor in the early 
history and life of our country. Raleigh stands for the Eng- 
lish gentry, and is the pioneer of a certain form of American 
aristocracy. 

Second is Captain John Smith, distinguished by military 
prowess, the spirit of adventure, and a certain Yankee courage. 
It is a mistake to suppose that all Yankees come from the 
vicinity of Boston. Captain John Smith was the forerunner 
of that spirit of enterprise and business audacit}- which has 
made the American a marked man in the world of affairs. 

The third is William Penn, founder of the " City of Brotherly 
Love," the Quaker in faith and practice, the pioneer of a sturdy 
but conservative race. The Quaker has never made a very 
profound impression in America. He has preferred to remain 
by the Delaware, while his more ambitious brethren have struck 
out across the continent and the seas. But William Penn is 
still a force. People smile sometimes at the conservatism of 
Philadelphia. A man fell oat of a twenty-story window in 
Chicago the other day, and gathering himself together, stood 
up and walked away. It was discovered by a policeman that 
he came from Philadelphia, and consequently fell so slowly 
that he did not injure himself ! The contribution which the 
Quaker has made, moreover, to the character and traits of the 
average American belongs to those commanding forces des- 
tined to possess the earth. 

The fourth is Sir Hendrik Hudson, who entered New York 
harbor on the Half Moon, at a time when Manhattan was a 
wooded slope, and when the bridle-path prophetically outlined 
Broadway and Fifth Avenue, when the ships of the world had 
not yet begun to stir the waters of the harbor, and when the 
wing of the sea-gull outlined the Brooklyn Bridge, that great 
artery through which flows the blood of commerce. Hudson 
brought to Manhattan the rugged spirit of the Dutch, from 
which has sprung a great civilization, — a civilization of iron, 
of conscience, and of courage. We must not forget that the 
young man who recently walked into the White House at 



172 REV. WILLIAM RADER. 

Washington, and in the shadow of a national calamity as- 
sumed the responsibilities of the Presidency, has in his veins 
good Dutch blood. 

The fifth is the Pilgrim Father, who brought to the shores of 
New England the disciplined intellect tried in the fires of per- 
secution, the conscience for the freedom of which he was will- 
ing to die, and a passion for possession, which has ended in a 
line of cities from Boston to Honolulu. The Pilgrim Father 
has much of this, earth, and he has won it in a passion for 
business enterprise and military successes. The spirit of New 
England is an influential factor in the history of the United 
States. 

The average American citizen derives his characteristics from 
these and from many other great contributions which the Old 
World has made to the New; so that if you were to make a 
composite photograph of the shoemaker of Lynn, the merchant 
of Chicago, the cotton-planter of Louisiana, the ranchman of 
California, you will have a portrait which answers to the car- 
toon, familiar to every American newspaper-reader, of a tall 
gentleman in striped short trousers, gray hair, chin-whiskers, 
prominent nose, deep-set sparkling eyes, standing six feet in 
height, holding in one hand his plug hat wrapped around with 
the Stars and Stripes, and in the other the American flag, — 
the grandest and most influential embodiment of the common 
people, — Uncle Sam, the personification of the United States. 

I desire to analyze his traits, beliefs, and relations, with a 
discussion of the types produced from the life of the common 
people of our country, and to suggest some of the domestic and 
foreign problems which now confront us. 

The politics of Uncle Sam and of the average citizen is the 
principle of popular government. He was from the beginning 
trained in the exercise of self-government. In the cabin of 
the Mayflower, in the New England town meeting, and in the 
political campaigns of state and nation, he was disciplined in 
the school of popular government. 

Self-government is a capacity, rather than a right, — the 
prerogative that is always conditioned by the capacity to ex- 
ercise the prerogative. The matter of self-government is not 
one of race or color, but of ability. A monarchy is a govern- 



UNCLE SAM. 173 

ment of the one; an oligarchy, a government of the few; an 
aristocracy, a government of the rich; and a partial democ- 
racy, which we have in this country, a government of the many. 
Democracy was defined by Lincoln, in his Gettysburg address, 
as a government "of the people, by the people, and for the peo- 
ple." This may well be regarded as the most powerful politi- 
cal idea in the world. Every throne on earth feels the impact 
of this logic, and every people in the world awakens to its 
meaning. Popular government in the United States has been 
regarded as an experiment; but it is no longer an experiment 
in government: it is an assured fact. We have seen, with the 
assistance of the public school and republican institutions, the 
wisdom of the people managing their own affairs in their own 
way. We have vindicated our right to transact our political 
business without the assistance of a king. The constant fight 
that has been made against the boss in American politics is 
the assurance of the common people that they are the govern- 
ment. We are the government of the United States, and we 
have just as good government as we deserve. The people are 
the republic. I saw a picture, recently, in a New York paper 
(I refer to this without any regard to the position of Great 
Britain in the South African War), and it illustrated the place 
of democracy, as a political principle, among the nations of the 
earth. It portrayed the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty in New 
York harbor, with its uplifted torch enlightening the world. 
On the folds of the flame were written such words as " Bunker 
Hill," "Gettysburg," "Lexington," and "Transvaal." Beside 
it stood John Bull with his high top-boots and riding-whip, 
his cheeks puffed out in the attempt to blow out the candle of 
liberty. Ladies and gentlemen, it is impossible to extinguish 
the rising flame of popular liberty, the light of which to-day 
illumines the heavens of the world, and extending, in every 
government on the earth, the dictum of Lincoln, " A govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people." The 
rise of the common man is revolutionizing the politics of the 
world. When the laborer lays down his pick in the coal 
mines of Pennsylvania, the President of the United States 
feels the national influence of his silence, and when the com- 
mon man casts his ballot, every political party reckons with 



174 REV. WILLIAM RADER. 

its power. Democracy has become an opportunity; it is the 
privilege of the many. Government is not for the sake of the 
governors, but for the governed. 

Uncle Sam is a man of the home. The home is the funda- 
mental institution of the country, more necessary than the 
church or the school. Indeed, the home embodies these insti- 
tutions; for the first school was the fireside, and the first 
teacher, the mother; the first church was the ancient Hebrew 
household, and the first priest, the father. While we have the 
home, we have the republic, the very essence of our national 
life. The morality of the people never rises above the moral- 
ity of the domestic life; hence the home may be regarded as 
the thermometer of the republic. Uncle Sam has found the 
domestic life the inspiration of his higher conquests and the 
reinforcement of his remarkable career. Starting out across 
the continent to subdue the forests and wilderness, he lies 
down in his cabin with powder-horn and musket, a king in 
his kingdom. Going out to fight the battles of the nation, he 
remembers the fireplace, and becomes the indomitable warrior 
against the threatening enemies of his home. The early his- 
tory of our country has bright home pictures. One, that of 
the old Southern home, — that of the better class of the South- 
ern aristocracy, — where we see the ladies and gentlemen of 
that older South, and which are so vividly pictured by Mrs. 
Johnston. On the gala evenings we see the gentry with their 
knickerbockers, silver buckles, powdered wigs, dancing the 
graceful minuet with the lovely ladies of old Virginia, — the 
picture which reminds us of an institution that has furnished 
to the world some of the best and noblest minds. 

But in striking contrast to the aristocracy of the Southern 
States is the more commonplace life of the Pennsylvania Dutch. 
Here, on a winter's night, the neighbors come in to talk about 
the things of state, to shell corn, and smoke the cob pipe, and 
drink the cider, and eat the apples. We look in upon them 
from across the years, and see the farmer astride the upturned 
spade laid across a tub, across the blade of the spade the 
golden ears are drawn, and the golden grains fly with ideas 
on church and state. 

In Whittier's Snow-Bound, we have the immortal picture of 



UNCLE SAM. 175 

the New England home in winter, — the home of Uncle Sam 
in the early days of stress and struggle. Snow has been fall- 
ing all day, and the landscape is covered with a white sheet. 
Evening comes, and brings together the family. The cider 
simmers by the hearth and the apples are on the floor, mother 
darns the stockings, the father reads the paper or the Bible, 
while the children play blind man's buff. Then comes the 
" sand-man," and the little eyes grow weary. We may imagine 
the boy stretched out at last upon the old-fashioned settee; 
and if you have ever tried to pull a boy who has been sound 
asleep from the settee to get him to bed, you know how diffi- 
cult the task. How many limber joints, and how heavy the 
stubborn body! The children are taken up and tucked in 
under one of the old-fashioned feather beds, and kissed to 
sleep by mother's holy lips. The next morning they are 
roused by the tinkle of bells and shout of the men, who are 
out early to make paths for the children to go to school. This 
is a simple rustic scene, but, ladies and gentlemen, this is the 
institution that has produced the greatest men of America, 
and sent to the world stronger characters than has Yale, or 
Harvard, or Princeton. It is from the home, the old American 
home, our best men and women have sprung, and what we 
need imperatively in California is the old-fashioned domestic 
life. Boys and girls growing up into manhood and woman- 
hood, who have no happy recollections of a home, are to be 
pitied. More than once I have crossed this continent to visit 
the little home, to sit for a few moments in the same old 
chair that mother used to fill, to swing under the same trees 
that sheltered me when a boy, or to lie flat down and drink 
from the favorite spring. 

" How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood, 
When fond recollection presents them to view." 

But Uncle Sam has not fought the battles of his life alone, 
and the mention of the home reminds me of his helpmeet, 
whom I may call the wife of Uncle Sam. In writing the his- 
tory of our land, we must never forget the place that the wife 
of the average man occupies in the development of our coun- 
try. Had he been alone, a forlorn and disappointed bachelor, 



176 REV. WILLIAM RADER. 

the average man would never have succeeded in accomplishing 
what he has. With the assistance of his wife he has been able 
to execute his plans and realize his dreams. Who is meant by 
the wife of Uncle Sam? In replying, permit me to speak of 
some types of American womanhood. 

The first is the woman without any individuality. Now, a 
woman without any individuality is like an orange without 
juice; she is insipid and uninteresting. Such a woman has 
no ideas, and if she has, they end with the tip of the loftiest 
feather on her costliest bonnet. She is an animated plate of 
fashion, a social nonentity, beautiful to look at, but uninter- 
esting to talk with, and without convictions or opinions. It 
must be confessed that a woman without convictions and with- 
out the courage to express them is scarce, but when you find 
one, you find the most uninteresting type of American woman- 
hood. 

Another type is the woman who has too much individual- 
ity. Now, a woman who has more convictions than she knows 
what to do with, and more individuality than she can contain, 
is one that every man is bound to respect, though he may 
not admire. Of these there are two classes. First, the new 
woman. By the " new woman " I mean the woman who speaks 
when she is not asked to speak; who goes forth to reform 
the world when she is not moved by an irresistible passion 
for humanity; who appears before the public from selfish rea- 
sons, when she should, in fact, be at home nursing the baby. 
To her, reform is an intellectual pastime, and public speaking 
an escape from domestic duty. 

I believe, with Hannah More, that a woman "should be 
great, not as a man, but as a woman," and that every condi- 
tion admitting woman into a larger sphere of activity or into 
new fields of reform opens the way for a destruction of the very 
qualities which make woman tender, innocent, and attractive. 

Our economic and industrial system destroys the character- 
istics of sex. Women are losing femininity, and are taking on 
the qualities of masculinity. A masculine woman is as un- 
natural as an effeminate man. Womanhood loses its peculiar 
charm in business competition. It gains independence, but 
loses force. In a woman, tenderness is stronger than force. 






UNCLE SAM. 177 



There is a class of reformers who have something to say, 
and who say it with clearness and strength. There are many 
questions which the men of the country are reluctant to dis- 
cuss. It remains for these heroic women to come forth and 
speak in the name of God and humanity. I do not refer to 
such a woman as Carrie Nation, who might be described as "a 
tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide," — a woman who has 
become the John Brown of temperance reform, who has done 
with her hatchet what many would do with their ballot, — but 
such women as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, 
— who is a kind of Uncle Sam with a dress on, — and that 
noble woman who carried the white ribbon of reform around 
the world, and who not long since went through the "gates 
beautiful," — the woman who is always to be remembered as 
queen of the American platform, — Frances B. Willard. All 
honor to such legitimate and sincere reformers who have a 
message, and know how to give it ! 

But these women do not define what I mean by the wife 
of Uncle Sam. She does not appear in public, and her name 
is seldom seen in the newspapers. She writes no books, de- 
livers no lectures, paints no great pictures, but remains the in- 
conspicuous, silent worker, blessing her home, reinforcing her 
husband, bringing up her children, and doing the most im- 
portant work God has intrusted to the hands of a woman. 
She is still a great force in the nation; for the hand that 
rocks the cradle still rules the world. Wherever you find a 
great man, you will find a great woman. All successful men, 
it will be found, depend upon some woman. So Garfield 
thought when he kissed his mother after kissing the Bible, 
when made President of the United States. When William 
Lloyd Garrison was in jail, his wife stood outside and ex- 
pressed her confidence in his loyalty to his convictions. Wen- 
dell Phillips was to address a mob in Faneuil Hall, Boston, 
and his wife, an invalid, lying upon her bed, took his hands 
in hers, and looking into his eloquent eyes, whispered, " Wen- 
dell, do not shilly-shally to-night; be a man; be true to your- 
self," — and the great orator faced the howling mob and sent 
the quivering dart from the strong bow of his mighty convic- 
tions deep into Boston's public heart. How could he do other- 
wise, with such an angel in his garden of Gethsemane? 



178 REV. WILLIAM KADEK. 

No ! the wife of Uncle Sam is seen in the kitchen, rather 
than in the drawing-room; she is seen in the farm-house of 
the West; she is seen in the humble home of the working- 
man of the great city, trying to do " with five dollars what God 
intended ten dollars to accomplish." She sits by the little 
fevered child during the long watches of the night, working 
out, as no theologian has done, the theory of the atonement, 
by giving her life to her own. When the little boy meets 
with an accident in his play, and comes running in with bleed- 
ing finger, crying, he finds refuge in the arms of the mother, 
who washes the blood away, binds the little finger up, dashes 
a kiss under the sunny curls, and sends him back to his play. 
The true wives and true mothers of men are the great women 
of the world. 

Great is the wife of the average man; for with her own 
hands has she assisted in laying the eternal foundations of 
this vast republic. A few months ago we saw an exhibition 
of her allegiance and her tenderness. When President Mc- 
Kinley was brought low by an assassin's bullet, and the nation 
stood appalled in the presence of death, his wife, with almost 
superhuman strength, went to his side, and with her strong 
arms carried him from the tumult of Buffalo into the very 
presence of God; and while we see the illustration of a noble 
expression of the traits of Uncle Sam in William McKinley, 
we must never be unmindful of the equally impressive person- 
ality of his wife, — the example of the average woman of the 
United States. 

Uncle Sam is religious. It is sometimes supposed that the 
average American lacks deep religious convictions. In the 
transition from the old idea of emotional conversion to the 
new theory of the spiritual development, a great change has 
taken place in the manifestation of Christian faith. If the 
American people are to be tested in their religious life by 
church-attendance or Bible-reading, it would appear that they 
signally lack religious experience. On the other hand, if we 
judge them by the practical results of Christian character, 
such as benevolence, justice, fair play, and an emphasis upon 
personal righteousness, it will be seen that there is a good 
deal of old-fashioned conscience still around. Men do still 



UNCLE SAM. 179 

believe in law, and order, and virtue. The constant move- 
ment of the people from one section of the land to another 
tends to disturb the religious life. The little girl whose par- 
ents moved from Maine to California prayed, the night be- 
fore they started, "Good by, God; we are going to California." 
She was probably related to the little girl in Lyman Abbott's 
Sunday school, who, when asked to define a lie, said, "A lie is 
an abomination unto the Lord, and a very present help in 
time of trouble." David Harum denned the Golden Rule as 
follows: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto 
you; but do it 'fust.'" These are practical and witty examples 
of the religious character of the people. Many a man who has 
been sound in the faith in Boston has thrown aside the doc- 
trine of the perseverance of the saints after crossing the Rocky 
Mountains. Surrounded with new conditions, the old religious 
life was lost. Uncle Sam does represent, however, strong na- 
tional conscience. It sometimes takes the form of a rugged 
conservatism, holding to the most antiquated views of revela- 
tion, clinging to some ancient creed with all its might. . . . 
He does believe in God. In great wars and in national crises 
through which he has passed, he has held with unflinching 
faith to the Eternal. Frequently cast down in the darkness of 
national disaster, he has prayed to God. During the dark days 
when President McKinley was passing, and after he had gone, 
Catholic churches resounded with " Nearer, My God, to Thee," 
and Protestant churches sang the Catholic hymn, "Lead, 
Kindly Light." A man from Utah went to Washington to 
take his seat in the American Congress, where he was con- 
fronted with a petition ten feet long from the women of Amer- 
ica, which said that any man with three wives should not be 
permitted one seat in the American Congress. He was re- 
turned to Utah by the conscience of the nation. When Chi- 
cago is burned or Galveston destroyed, the railroads are 
blocked with food and raiment. When the fire destroys Saint 
Pierre, the people of America are the first to respond to the 
needs of the refugees, and this is the best type of practical re- 
ligion. 

The average man believes in character. He trusts righteous- 
ness, believes in common, old-fashioned honesty and fair play. 



180 REV. WILLIAM RADER. 

He is generous and respects the Church. He will fight for his 
conscience. His Bible contains Jehovah's word. He believes 
in law and order, and his soldiers and battle-ships are instru- 
ments of justice. Hating shams, he applauds reality wherever 
he sees it. His is a manly, noble faith. He will not sleep in 
church if the preacher speaks as an honest man to honest men. 

Sect and creed, form and ceremony, rites and symbols, have 
little influence on the American of to-day. Citizenship does 
not require that a man should be a Protestant or a Catholic, 
a Jew or a Christian. The ethical basis of citizenship is 
broader than either or all these. Character is better than 
creed. 

Uncle Sam is not an atheist. He believes God thinks of 
him, as he did of Moses and Joshua. The thunders of Sinai 
have never ceased to be heard, and the fires of the sacred 
mountain he has seen in the flashes of his own guns. God is 
in the constitutional life of the people and in the national 
conscience. Daniel Webster was a diamond in the rough, but 
he expressed the religious spirit of Uncle Sam. The last time 
he walked across his room, he called to his servant, " I want 
you to moor my yacht down there, where I can see it from 
my window; then I want you to hoist the flag at the mast- 
head, and every night to hang the lamp up in the rigging; 
when I go down, I want to go down with my colors flying and 
my lamp burning." On his monument he ordered this in- 
scription, "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief." Such is 
Uncle Sam's religious faith. 

Uncle Sam believes in education. The schoolhouse has 
been the pillar of cloud of the pioneer. It has developed from 
the log building to the universit}^. The training of the brain 
has been one of the higher passions of the Americans. In the 
evolution of industry and in the establishment of popular gov- 
ernment, in the expansion of religion and in the construction 
of great cities, education has been a powerful factor. The 
public schools have reinforced democracy. That it is unsafe 
for the state to raise ignorant men, is demonstrated in history. 
Popular government must rest upon public intelligence. The 
schoolhouse is inseparable from the ballot-box. When the 
people rule, the people must be informed. The people should 



UNCLE SAM. 181 

know the English language, and be intelligent as to the needs 
of the local community. A knowledge of English is more 
necessary than a knowledge of Greek. To be informed on the 
needs of America is more necessary than to know all about an- 
cient Rome. We must know something about society, labor, 
taxation, vice, politics, and industrial resources. Government 
in the United States does not depend so much upon brilliant 
scholarship as upon sound common sense. We look for com- 
mon sense in the administration in Washington, rather than 
for scholastic learning. The affairs of the government are con- 
ducted through the common sense of the average citizen. Edu- 
cation is common sense vitalized. Common sense is the bot- 
tom of education. Ignorance is the danger of all republics. It 
has become a well-known fact, under all forms of government, 
that the hope of the government is the education of the masses. 
Mr. Beecher said: "The common schools are the stomachs of 
America, and when a man goes in there, he comes out, after 
all, an American." 

Types. — De Tocqueville said that democracies fail in the 
production of great men. In reading the history of the great 
men of the United States, we certainly have no reason to 
apologize for what has been accomplished by the common 
people of our country. In comparison with other lands, we 
have much to be proud of. . . . We are still young, but we 
have made progress in the development of strong types of 
national character. To be sure, as the masses rise in intelli- 
gence and influence, there is a corresponding diminution in 
distinct types. The great man gradually disappears, but only 
by comparison with the general elevation of the people. This 
is true not only of our own country, but of other countries. 
The passing of the great man is one of the characteristics of 
the age. The great men of England are, for the most part, 
under the marble monuments of Westminster Abbey. There 
is no Gladstone in Parliament, no Ruskin in letters, no Brown- 
ing or Tennyson, no great and splendid luminary shining 
brighter than all other planets. This is a sign of the times, 
and is not to be regretted. When we come to analyze the 
types distinctively American and those that were Italian, Ger- 
man, French, or English, we immediately discover something 



182 REV. WILLIAM RADER. 

virile and commanding in the American spirit. Our many- 
sided life, lived on such a broad, continental stage, is condu- 
cive to a manifold character. Scotland has had her Burns; 
but America, Robert Burns Christianized in the person of 
John Greenleaf Whittier. Italy has had her Garibaldi, and 
Mazzini, and Cavour; but we have produced our William Lloyd 
Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and the rank and fanatic growth 
product in John Brown. England has her incomparable 
Dickens, whose magic pen idealized the slums of London; but 
America has her Fenimore Cooper. England produced her 
genial Sydney Smith, whose wit flows like wine; America 
has given to the world Mark Twain. Cromwell left a line of 
broken cathedrals in his path; but it has remained for the 
United States to fashion in the discipline of the prairie and 
the crises of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Britain 
produced her Wellington. When in Edinburgh I stood under 
the equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, and quoted 
the lines of the poet laureate when Wellington was laid in 
Westminster Abbey: — 

" For this is England's greatest son, 
He that gained a hundred fights, 
Nor ever lost an English gun." 

This was before the Boer war! 

But I must not forget the man who sleeps under the mar- 
ble mausoleum which stands by the Hudson like a silent 
sentinel, — America's greatest military creation, — Ulysses S. 
Grant. England has given us George III.; and America, 
George Washington. There is one name, however, belonging 
to our friends across the Atlantic which we do not match. 
There are certain great men who belong to the world. This 
name still stands unequaled and alone. His fingers swept 
over all the strings of the heart's harp, touching every emo- 
tion and thrilling every passion. It belonged to him to draw 
in bold and splendid outline upon the canvas the immortal 
tragedies of life. He stands above all others as the brightest 
intellectual product of the ages. As Mount Shasta with its 
cap of snow stands above the lesser hills, so stands William 
Shakespeare above all, belonging at once to America and to 
England. 



UNCLE SAM. 183 

Among the types which have been fashioned in the common- 
place life of the common people might be mentioned, — 

1. The Prophet. By the prophet is meant, not the fortune- 
teller, but the interpreter; he who comes suddenly with a mes- 
sage to the powers that be, or to the people, appealing to the 
conscience for the exercise of the people's rights. The prophet 
has been, for the most part, the orator. The orator of Amer- 
ica occupies an important place in the statesmanship of the 
people. Patrick Henry, in the early days, blazed forth with 
his message of liberty or death, reminding us of Isaiah coming 
to the holy city with words of fire. Webster stands in the 
American Congress and pleads for the unity of the nation, 
against the argument of the South, in anticipation of the con- 
flict that even then was upon us, in which was decided forever 
that only one flag should float in the sky of America. It would 
not be too much for us to believe that Daniel Webster was a 
greater orator than Demosthenes or Cicero. Alexander Ham- 
ilton's life, beginning with precocity on the island of Nevis 
and closing in the tragedy of a duel by the Hudson, was a 
mighty prophet in our early American history. There stands 
Henry Ward Beecher before the cities of Great Britain, plead- 
ing the cause of the United States, — the prophet who encoun- 
tered more danger than the prophets of old, and who belongs 
to that illustrious list who were stoned. All the soldiers of 
our wars did not wear uniforms or carry guns; some stood in 
pulpits, or thundered from platforms, or sat in editors' chairs, 
or wrote verses that were melodious with singing bullets and 
throbbing drums. Whittier was a prophet. His verse is filled 
with patriotism. Gentle as a Friend, his words thunder with 
battle. Harriet Beecher Stowe was a prophetess. She appealed 
to the national conscience in the greatest book America has 
yet produced. This type of reformer, always prominent in 
times of national danger, is hardly duplicated in any govern- 
ment of the world. 

2. The Business Man. The business spirit of the United 
States is attracting world-wide attention. From the beginning, 
Uncle Sam has been a man of industry and enterprise. Com- 
pelled by the exigencies of his environment to dig canals and 
construct railways, he at once became an adept in the prosecu- 



184 REV. WILLIAM KADEB. 

tion of business plans. He made his own ships, constructed 
his own machinery, lighted his cities, formulated great corpo- 
rations, and laid the foundation for the commerce that was to 
expand over the earth. Without exception, he stands first 
among the enterprising business men of to-day. John Pier- 
pont Morgan has not only showed the London people how to 
light St. Paul's Cathedral with incandescent blossoms of flame 
that creep around the dome and bloom over the arches and 
over the tombs, but he has financially captured the ships upon 
the sea, and manipulates more funds than some of the Euro- 
pean governments. Our great fortunes have, for the most 
part, begun with the ordinary life of the common people, — 
which is to say, they have been laid up by the horny hands of 
toil. The American business man works faster, thinks quicker, 
and dies sooner, transacts more business in a given time, than 
any other business man on earth. As Michael Angelo, and 
Rembrandt, and Titian were geniuses in the world of art, so 
are our captains of industry geniuses to-day in the world of 
business. The rise of Mackay from the alkali plains of Ne- 
vada, where he lived in a miner's cabin, to the master of mil- 
lions, is one of many romances of American pluck, industry, 
and success. 

3. The Humorist. Uncle Sam is a humorist, and in cracking 
his jokes, playing his pranks, writing his wit, which has the 
sparkle of champagne, there has developed a school of humor. 
The proverbial reflection upon the capacity of the Scot to see a 
joke has never been cast on the American. Three men meet in 
our country, and, as a result, there are at least three specimens 
of witty wisdom. Ben Butler was asked who the three great- 
est liars in America were, and he replied, " Eli Perkins is one, 
and Mark Twain the other two." That was a tribute to their 
power as fun-makers. The school of our national humor dates 
back to Franklin. Even the Puritan, who looked with sus- 
picion upon good nature, has his dry humor. Holmes and 
Lowell were humorists of the higher order. Holmes said he 
never laughed on the inside. A greater humorist never laughed 
on the outside. 

Artemus Ward, cadaverous in appearance, solemn as an owl 
without, but full of the music of mirth within, — Artemus 



UNCLE SAM. 185 

Ward is probably the best and purest type of the American 
humorist, — a typical representative of Uncle Sam. He was 
not only interesting on the platform, but humorous in his pri- 
vate life. Traveling on a Southern railway train which was 
slow, he said to the conductor as he handed him his ticket, 
" Would you mind if I made a criticism on this railroad, if I 
did it in a gentlemanly spirit?" The conductor said he 
guessed not; whereupon Artemus said, "Would you mind 
putting the cow-catcher on the rear of the train? There is no 
danger of running into a cow in front; but what is to prevent 
a cow from walking into the rear car and biting one of the 
passengers?" 

Mark Twain has made people laugh the world over. His 
frog of Calaveras has been as great an advertisement of Cali- 
fornia as the big trees of Mariposa. He has flavored his fun 
with a characteristic Americanism which even the London 
Cockney appreciates and understands. 

Bill Nye, Petroleum V. Nasby, James Whitcomb Riley, and 
others, of which the last is Mr. Dooley, stand for the good na- 
ture of Uncle Sam. 

The humorous side of life often appeals to Uncle Sam. In 
laying the foundations of the republic, good humor has been 
an inspiration. In the dark days of the Rebellion, Abraham 
Lincoln painted rainbows on the clouds around the White 
House by his inexhaustible fund of "wise wit and witty wis- 
dom." It is better to laugh than to cry — sometimes. Laugh- 
ter is the music of the soul. It is the sun falling on the rain- 
drops. Laughter is the nightingale's voice in the night. It 
chases away care, destroys worry. It is the intoxicating cup 
of good nature, which cheers, but does not cheat. Laughter 
paints pictures, dreams dreams, and floods life with love. 
Blessed are the people who can laugh! Laughter is religion 
and hope; and the apostles of good nature, who see the 
bright side of life, the queer and funny things among men, 
the clowns in Vanity Fair, as well as the deep and terrible 
pathos of life, are missionaries of comfort and evangels of 
good health. 

4. The Soldier. The soldier fashioned in the discipline of 
the American life is a military type peculiarly our own. No- 



186 REV. WILLIAM RADER. 

where in the world has there been such a soldier. Three types 
appear in American history. One is the Continental or Revo- 
lutionary soldier, who pulled down the statue of George III. 
and molded it into bullets, rose up behind the stone walls of 
Lexington and Concord and "fired the shot heard round the 
world," stood against the muskets of the powerful Britons at 
Bunker Hill and Trenton, and vindicated the doctrine of 
national independence in the signal victory of the American 
Revolution. And grand men were these old warriors of inde- 
pendence. The best blood of the Old World flowed in their 

veins as — 

' ' In their ragged regimentals 
Stood the old Continentals." 

The minute-man at Concord is the voiceless personifica- 
tion of Uncle Sam standing with majestic courage against his 
first foreign foe. 

Another soldier is that of the Rebellion. With better arms 
and superior training, with here and there a picked man from 
West Point or Annapolis, the soldiers of the republic sustained 
the republic, and in battles which, for sacrifice and exhibition 
of high military prowess, equaled the greatest battles of the 
world. The soldier of the American Rebellion is probably the 
finest military character in history. Trained, volunteer, pri- 
vate, uniformed, and ununiformed as in the case of Lincoln and 
Beecher and Stanton, — these men went forth to keep one flag 
in the sky. This flag was drawn from under the wheels of the 
Southern Confederacy and planted without the loss of a single 
star upon the crumbled walls of Sumter. The spirit of the 
common people flashed in the muskets of the Revolution, rang 
in the rifles of the Rebellion, and roared from the battle-ships 
of the Spanish War. The common man was behind the guns, 
and the power of the people became the salvation of the state. 

5. The Citizen. In the United States the citizen differs 
from the citizen of other countries, in that he has the power 
to express himself. Free speech, free press, free schools, all 
derived from Holland, together with the free ballot, have in- 
vested the citizenship of our country with a cherished personal 
liberty. The citizen has the right to say what he thinks, and 
to vote as his conscience dictates. He has the right to do as 



UNCLE SAM. 187 

he pleases, provided he pleases to do what is right. The bal- 
lot-box is his prerogative; the ballot, his opportunity. The 
spectacle of good people aroused is one never to be forgotten. 
The pages of American history are punctuated with storms 
sweeping over the people's sensibilities, which find expression 
in public appeals, and sometimes in arms. The government 
is vested in the enlightened civic conscience. Alexander Ham- 
ilton and Thomas Jefferson were both prophets, in that they 
saw the safety of the republic in some form of an enlightened 
citizenship. The constitution of the United States is framed 
in accordance with the personal liberty of the civilian. Fun- 
damentally, we are not a military country; our bullets are 
ballots; our statesmen are citizens. In the United States, the 
citizen is plain, straightforward, honest, wearing no uniform, 
carrying no ensign, except the flag. Uncle Sam, the peaceful 
member of a democracy, plowing his fields, making his horse- 
shoes, transacting his business, driving his train, or propelling 
his ship, is the model representative of the common people, 
who are citizens, not soldiers. 

Citizenship is not a matter of religious faith nor partisan 
politics. It is founded on a knowledge of the English lan- 
guage, an intelligent conception of civic duty, and on personal 
character. There is more to fear from sleepy respectability 
than from the vicious classes. The citizen must exercise his 
rights. Indifference is the political curse of municipalities. 
The people, not the bosses, are the government. We have as 
good government as we deserve. Uncle Sam's national citizen- 
ship was fired to the fighting-point when, after hearing Cuba's 
cry, his pet battle-ship was destroyed in Havana harbor, send- 
ing to the bottom over two hundred men. It was then that 
he walked into the halls of the American Congress and re- 
ceived the thunderbolt of the people's conscience, backed by 
fifty millions in money, which he hurled at the ancient Span- 
ish tyrant, whose flag was forever banished from the skies of 
the Western World. 

American citizenship has immense military and moral re- 
sources. It contains the national conscience and the national 
honor. The President is a citizen, and under every uniform 
in the army is a plain civilian. 



188 REV. WILLIAM EADEE. 

Among the types known everywhere by their Americanism, 
and distinguished by the traits of the people, may be men- 
tioned, then, the prophet, the man of business and enterprise, 
the humorist, the soldier, and the citizen. 

In concluding, three things should be said. 

1. Problems at Home. Uncle Sam faces serious problems 
at home. Our form of government is always fraught with do- 
mestic issues and responsibilities. Our greatest foes have been 
from within. With our conglomerate mass of people, the per- 
plexing problems growing out of corrupt partisan politics, the 
purification of the fountains of political power, the problems of 
great cities, the matter of immigration, the maintenance of 
high national ideals, the white man's burden in the South, — 
all are issues which must not be ignored. Every man is called 
upon to be thoughtful as to the welfare of his country. The 
difficulty is for every one to be personally interested in political 
conditions. . . . 

2. Problems Abroad. McKinley's administration has car- 
ried us through a crisis of foreign complications. We have 
succeeded in emancipating Cuba and launching as a republic 
the people who have been rescued from the tyranny of Spain. 
The guns of Dewey have broken away the old and rusted gates 
of the Pacific Orient, admitting our flag into the larger sphere 
of the wide world. We have escaped from the Chinese entan- 
glement, and now command respect as a world power. While 
congratulating Great Britain upon the end of the war in South 
Africa, brought about by mutual promises, we are congratulat- 
ing ourselves upon the political solution of our Philippine 
problems. We are withdrawing our soldiers, and sending 
teachers to take their places. We are exchanging books for 
powder. Our relation to foreign countries is amicable. Our 
flag is intertwined with the Union Jack, and together they be- 
come the banner of international well-being. The recent visit 
of Prince Henry is the indication of a closer fellowship with 
the German people. The genial Prince has drawn the silver 
thread of international brotherhood through the tapestry of 
two continents and has knitted two peoples in closer union. 
Our representative, Governor Taft, in conference with the 
Papal authorities of the Vatican, has succeeded in settling 



UNCLE SAM. 189 

amicably, it is to be hoped, the friar question in the Philip- 
pines. We have reason to congratulate ourselves upon the au- 
spicious opening vouchsafed to us at the close of the Spanish- 
American War and following the assassination of President 
McKinley. 

3. The Prophecy of the Reign of the Common Man. Since the 
Nazarene announced his original plan of government, the com- 
mon man has been in the ascendency. The time will come, 
let us hope, when the peasant of Italy will no longer go to 
work bearing on his back a soldier, when the coal-miners of 
Pennsylvania will ring the independence bell in the depths of 
the coal mines, and when in Cuba, Porto Rico, and the islands 
of the sea, among all classes of people, the melody of indepen- 
dent industrial equality and political freedom may be heard 
everywhere. Ultimately, in the pilot-box of every ship of state 
will stand, not the captain of industry, not the warrior, but 
the common man, who, in the United States, is represented by 
that majestic figure, the incarnation of the lasting principles 
of popular government, Uncle Sam. 



HORACE G. PLATT. 

Horace G. Platt was born in Alabama, and grew up in Virginia 
and Kentucky. He was educated at the University of Virginia, and 
came to California in 1875. Mr. Platt has practiced law since 1880. In 
1881 he served in the legislature of California, and in 1882 was a mem- 
ber of the Board of Education of San Francisco. His father, the Kev. 
W. H. Platt, was rector of Grace Episcopal Church, of San Francisco. 
Mr. Platt is a successful man of affairs, a noted wit, an after-dinner 
speaker of rare humor, and as an orator displays a mind of fascinating 
keenness and logic. It is rare indeed that so happy a combination of 
business shrewdness, charming wit, and elevating eloquence is found. 
The speeches published in this volume are excellent examples of his 
style. 

JOHN MARSHALL. 

[An address delivered at Cordray's Theatre, Portland, Oregon, Feb- 
ruary 4, 1901.] 

The evil that men do is said to live after them, but the good 
is oft interred with their bones. There are, however, good 
men, as well as bad men, who, " departing, leave behind them 
footprints on the sands of time," whose good work knows 
neither death nor dying, but lives on through the centuries. 
To the memory of such a man — Chief Justice Marshall — the 
bench and bar of this country are assembled to do honor and 
reverence on this the one-hundredth anniversary of his eleva- 
tion to the supreme bench. 

The close of a century is suggestive of retrospection, and 
invites us to revisit its dawning, as does the beginning of a 
century hurry us on the wings of anticipation to its close. 

The nineteenth century and the republic were rocked in the 
same cradle. The two have grown up together, foster-brothers, 
as it were, and they challenge comparison one with the other. 
The century began its travels on a stage-coach; it ends them 
on limited trains, that keep company with the sun as they 
speed across the continents. It began its correspondence with 

190 



JOHN MARSHALL. 191 

letters that lagged behind the snail; it ends it with the tele- 
phone and telegraph, that pace the lightning. It began with 
the nations whole wide worlds apart; it ends with earth's re- 
motest regions in neighborly communication, and all the world 
a whispering-gallery. It began with little science, less ma- 
chinery, and no surcease from pain; it ends with science drop- 
ping in ripe fruit from the tree of knowledge, machinery a 
wizard doing the work of magic, and pain lulled to sleep by 
the hypnotism of anesthetics. 

Equally marvelous has been the development of this repub- 
lic, — its government, its resources, and its people. 

One hundred years ago, thirteen sparsely settled states 
fringing the Atlantic constituted the United States of America. 
Its western boundary was the Mississippi, but its southern 
line did not extend to the Gulf of Mexico. To-day the United 
States of America consists of forty-five states and four terri- 
tories, cemented by blood into a Union one and indivisible, 
containing a population of eighty millions, and extending 
from British Columbia to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, and including, in addition, the arctic region of 
Alaska, the Hawaiian Islands, the Antilles, and the Philip- 
pines, those tropic isles of the Eastern and Western seas, — in 
all, a great empire second to none beneath the stars. 

One hundred years ago we were an agricultural people, 
whose exports did not exceed two hundred thousand dollars a 
year, and in importance we counted for little among the 
nations. To-day we are an agricultural, a commercial, and a 
manufacturing people; our annual exports exceed one billion 
of dollars, and we stand with our back to the wall, with 
boundless resources and untiring energy, fighting single- 
handed the battle of prosperity against the world. 

One hundred years ago our country had just started upon 
its career as a nation. It was a beginner among those that had 
the experience of ages; it was rich only in possibilities. To- 
day it has behind it the experience of the most wonderful cen- 
tury since time began, and has arrived at man's estate, rich 
beyond the dreams of its founders. Its people exceed in mil- 
lions the civilized citizens or subjects of any rival realm or 
region. Its coffers hold more gold than ever glittered in the 



192 HORACE G. PLATT. 

opiate dreams of any Oriental lord, or than now is stored in 
any European or Asiatic treasury. Its schoolhouses, flag-sur- 
mounted, like blazing beacons, lead more children out of dark- 
ness into light than are rescued from ignorance in any other 
land. Within its borders more homes shelter those of the 
people who live by the labor of their hands than in any of the 
countries beyond the seas. The poverty of the Old World 
grinds not its toilers. Its countless acres of waving grain and 
its snowy fields of cotton feed and clothe more peoples than 
its own. Its factories threaten with idleness the artisans of 
the other nations. An American bridge spans the Nile, 
American locomotives with their cheery whistle break the 
stillness of Siberian wastes and Asiatic vastness, American 
dollars are replenishing the emptying coffers of Europe, and 
an American battle-ship is queen of the seas. 

One hundred years ago we had a government that was an 
experiment, based upon a written constitution not yet under- 
stood or interpreted. To-day we have a government that has 
stood all the tests a hundred years could devise, — a government 
proven to be of the people, by the people, and for the people, 
a tower of strength for struggling humanity, from whose 
summit the torch of liberty lights the world; and it is based 
upon this same written constitution to which John Marshall 
gave its original interpretation, — an interpretation that time 
has strengthened and circumstance affirmed, — an interpreta- 
tion that is as permanent as the constitution, — an interpreta- 
tion that was a masterly unfolding of the meaning of the con- 
stitution, that "found it paper, and made it power," and to 
which we are indebted for the present strength and stability of 
this government, the present national oneness of this hetero- 
geneous collection of state sovereignties, and the consequent 
supremacy on the American continent of the United States. 
Therefore to this great jurist, more than to any other man 
since Washington, do we stand indebted for the greatness and 
the glory that characterize the United States as the crown- 
ing achievement of the nineteenth century. 

There is no page in our country's history that the life of this 
great jurist would not adorn. There is no one of our country's 
builders who can claim more renown. It therefore becomes 






JOHN MARSHALL. 193 

us, and must interest and instruct us, to review the events of 
his historic life, to recall his virtues, recount his achievements, 
and renew the immortelles upon his grave. I therefore ask 
your attention while I briefly and reverently attempt his 
eulogy. 

John Marshall was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, in 
1755. He had but little school education, and never attended 
college, but for a short course in law. He served from 1775 to 
1779 in the army of the Revolution, and endured the hardships 
of that terrible winter at Valley Forge. 

It was while he was there fighting for his country that he 
met Washington and Hamilton. It was amidst the sufferings 
and dangers of war that there began a lasting friendship and 
admiration between these three remarkable men, who did so 
much to start this country aright and give an abiding form 
to its government. 

In 1780, Marshall was admitted to the bar, after a not very 
extensive course of legal study. In 1782 he was elected to the 
legislature and made a member of the executive council, 
though then only twenty-seven years old. Although he served 
several terms in the legislature, he at the same time rose 
rapidly at the bar, and was employed in most of the important 
litigation before the Virginia court of appeals. His success 
can be understood from his style in argument, which may be 
best described in the words of William Wirt, who thus wrote 
of him: "Marshall spoke, as he always does, to the judgment 
merely, and for the simple purpose of convincing. His maxim 
seems always to have been to 'aim exclusively at strength.'" 

In 1788 he was elected a member of the Virginia convention 
called to consider the proposed Federal constitution. Virginia 
was the hotbed of those who were opposed to a closer union of 
the states, whereby it was sought to create a central govern- 
ment that in Federal matters would dominate the states. 
Patrick Henry was the eloquent spokesman of this party in 
this convention. 

Marshall believed that the two objects in forming a govern- 
ment were, safety for the people and energy in the administra- 
tion. He was sore distressed by the weakness of the existing 
confederation, and its inefficiency to accomplish either of these 



194 HORACE G. PLATT. 

objects. "If a system of government were devised by more 
than human intelligence," said he, "it would not be effectual 
if the means were not adequate to the power." 

Washington had strongly urged "an indissoluble union of 
the states under one Federal head" as one of the four things 
essential to the well-being, to the existence, of the United 
States as an independent nation, as one of the pillars on which 
the glorious fabric of our independency and national character 
must be supported. Marshall thoroughly sympathized with 
his great chief in this regard. He agreed with Washington 
that it was a solecism in politics that we should confederate as 
a nation and yet be afraid to give the rulers of that nation 
sufficient power to order and direct it. He therefore strongly 
favored the establishment of a national government with power 
to accomplish national purposes, and he urged the ratification 
of the constitution. The majority of the people of his state 
were opposed to it. They preferred the supremacy of the 
states to the supremacy of the Union. He was warned by his 
friends that he would be defeated unless he came out against 
ratification, but he replied with the courage that ever charac- 
terized him, that if elected, he would be a determined advocate 
for its adoption. He was elected, and combated with match- 
less ability the eloquence of Patrick Henry. 

In 1795 he was again, and against his wishes, returned to 
the legislature. In fact, on the day of the election, and after 
he himself had voted and had gone about his business, a poll 
was opened for him, and without his knowledge he was 
elected. 

The administration of Washington was then almost over- 
whelmed by a wave of unpopularity. The French minister 
was inciting the people against England. Popular feeling in 
favor of France was almost at a white heat. Washington's 
proclamation of neutrality in the war between France aod 
England, and his treaty of commerce with England, called the 
Jay treaty, were strongly and bitterly condemned in legisla- 
tures, in the newspapers, and at public meetings. Marshall 
was personally popular in Virginia. He was admired for his 
ability and respected for his integrity. It would have been 
easy for him to go with the majority of his fellow-citizens. 



JOHN MARSHALL. 195 

Warm friends urged him to take this course. But he was as 
distinguished for his courage as for his capacity. When his 
judgment had decided, he knew no turning back. He there- 
fore not only in the legislature supported the President with 
all his energy and ability, but after a mass-meeting in Rich- 
mond, presided over by Chancellor Wythe, had denounced the 
Jay treaty as insulting to the dignity, dangerous to the secu- 
rity, and repugnant to the constitution of the United States, 
he called a public meeting of the citizens, and succeeded in 
having resolutions carried approving the conduct of the ad- 
ministration, and admitting that it was acting within its con- 
stitutional rights. Some one has well said of this event, 
"With rare courage at a public meeting at Richmond he de- 
fended the wisdom and policy of the administration, and his 
argument as to its constitutionality anticipated the judgment 
of the world." 

For this course he was denounced as an aristocrat and as 
an enemy of a republican form of government. But these 
denunciations could not disturb his composure, nor prevent 
the growth of his reputation as a constitutional lawyer. 

His speech in the legislature, that the constitutional pro- 
vision giving to Congress the right to regulate commerce did 
not take from the executive the power, with the advice of the 
Senate, to negotiate and conclude a treaty of commerce, not 
onl}^ won him national fame, but settled this much-disputed 
constitutional question for all time. 

Soon thereafter Washington offered him the Attorney- 
Generalship and also the French mission, both of which he 
declined, though he did subsequently go with Pinckney and 
Gerry to France as a commissioner to settle the differences 
then existing between the two countries. 

This mission resulted in nothing, except to increase Mar- 
shall's fame by reason of his very able and dignified corre- 
spondence with Talleyrand, which, in the opinion of Patrick 
Henry, raised the American public in their own esteem. 

In 1799, at the earnest solicitation of Washington, unwill- 
ingly, but unselfishly and loyally, and in the face of an almost 
certain defeat, he again breasted the waves of popular disap- 
proval, and entered the race for Congress. His election was a 



196 HORACE G. PLATT. 

triumph won only by great courage, backed by his rapidly 
growing reputation. Although a new member, he immediately 
took rank as one of the leaders upon all constitutional ques- 
tions, and in the matter of the surrender of Jonathan Robbins, 
by the President, to England, upon a charge of murder com- 
mitted upon a British man-of-war, he delivered an argument 
that drew the line between the executive and judiciary depart- 
ments so clearly as to have the effect of a judicial construction 
of the constitution, — an argument so profound, so complete, 
so convincing, that, though not delivered in court, it has been 
considered worthy of preservation in the reports of the su- 
preme court. Free from any effort at rhetoric, oratory, or 
display, it reads like a judicial opinion, — calm, intellectual, 
decisive of the point in dispute. In this instance, Marshall 
again displayed that courage that always supported him when 
a constitutional question arose, and the proper construction 
was the unpopular one. 

It must be borne in mind that the American people at that 
time were but little used to governmental restraint, and were 
not disposed to look favorably upon any action of the Federal 
government that did not harmonize with the passions and preju- 
dices of the hour. Washington's proclamation of neutrality and 
the Jay treaty were unpopular, because the people were in sym- 
pathy with France, and because they preferred that Congress 
should have the sole power in such cases. Adams's surrender of 
Jonathan Robbins was unpopular because it was a compliance 
with a demand from England, and the people thought that the 
courts had the sole power to settle such a question. But in all 
of these matters Marshall considered neither popular approval 
nor disapproval, and his wonderful analytical mind, his in- 
tuitive perception of the true meaning of the constitution, his 
impartial mental temperament, enabled him to so correctly 
mark out the jurisdictions of the three departments of the gov- 
ernment as prescribed in the constitution, that Gallatin, who 
had been selected to reply to him in the Robbins matter, pro- 
claimed his arguments unanswerable. 

Before his term as Congressman was finished, Adams offered 
him a supreme court judgeship, which he declined, and then 
appointed him successively Secretary of War and Secretary of 



JOHN MARSHALL. 197 

State. The latter office he rilled until January 31, 1801, when 
he was appointed chief justice, taking his seat on February 4th 
of the same year. 

He was then forty- six years of age. What a contrast his 
career, then beginning, was to be to that of his great French 
contemporary, Napoleon Bonaparte, who, a few years later, 
when also forty-six years of age, finished a career that, like a 
meteor, had dazzled the world, both by the empyrean height 
its starry course pursued, and by the brilliancy of its light, 
that destroyed all it illumined! 

One hundred years ago, these two men were leaders of the 
two peoples that were then attracting the attention of the 
world by their struggles for the rights of man. One sought 
his own glory; the other, only the people's good. One fell 
from the throne he had erected upon the liberty of his country, 
at the age when the other took his seat as chief justice of the 
highest court of his land, where for over a third of a century 
he guarded the people's government from the assaults of its 
enemies. 

When the recording angel shall call the roll of the great 
men of the ages, those men whose minds shone with the light 
of genius and whose lives glowed with the Promethean fire, 
not to the one who sought to scale the stars upon a pyramid 
of crushed humanity, but to the one who helped humanity 
itself to reach the stars, will come the glad tidings, "Well 
done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord." 

John Quincy Adams said that if his father had done nothing 
else to deserve the approbation of his country and posterity, 
he might proudly claim it for the single act of making John 
Marshall chief justice; and posterity exclaims, "Amen." 

William Pinckney said that "he was born to be chief justice 
of any country into which Providence should have cast him," 
and every lawyer of the land echoes this statement. 

Bryce, in his American Commonwealth, has truly said that 
he was so singularly fitted for the office of chief justice, and 
rendered such incomparable services in it, that the Americans 
have been wont to regard him as a special gift of favoring 
Providence. 



198 HOKACE G. PLATT. 

Story said of him: "He was a great man; he would have 
been deemed a great man in any age, and of all ages; he was 
one of those to whom centuries alone give birth, standing out 
like beacon lights on the loftiest eminences to guide, admonish, 
and instruct future generations, as well as the present." 

When Marshall became chief justice, practically nothing 
had been done by the courts in construing the constitution. 
There had been but two decisions by the supreme court upon 
constitutional questions. During his incumbency of thirty- 
four years, there were fifty-one such decisions rendered by this 
court, in thirty-four of which he wrote the opinions, and in all 
but one of which his was the controlling mind. In but one of 
these he was overruled, — the case of Ogden v. Saunders, 
wherein he wrote a dissenting opinion against the power of the 
states to pass bankruptcy laws. 

The originality of his decisions may be best understood by 
bearing in mind that a written constitution, created by the 
people, and capable of being altered or repealed only by the 
people, controlling and not controlled by the legislature, was 
at that time a new thing in the science of government. 
The bench and bar of that day had known only the English 
constitution, which Parliament could change at will. They 
were now called upon to construe a written constitution, from 
which the executive, legislative, and judiciary departments 
alike derived their powers, and which measured out, as it 
created, all their rights. This charter was like an unexplored 
country, unmapped, unsurveyed, undeveloped. 

The prevailing tendency of that revolutionary period was 
to make the legislative department supreme. The opposing 
tendency, as voiced by such creative men as Hamilton, was to 
strengthen the executive department against the encroach- 
ments of the legislature. Such a situation was, in the lan- 
guage of Senator Daniel of Virginia, without a precedent in 
history, and has no parallel. The occasion demanded a judge 
who could, without fear and without reproach, construe this 
instrument, blaze out the paths each department must tread, 
and measure out the power each must exercise. This judge 
had no precedents to follow. His only guide was the letter of 
the law; his only inspiration, its spirit; his only resource, great 
wisdom unclouded by passion or prejudice. 



JOHN MARSHALL. 199 

Marshall was such a man. He did not need precedents. 
His mind seemed sufficient unto itself. The meaning lay, to 
him, in things themselves, and not in what others said about 
them. Therefore his opinions are almost free from the citation 
of authorities, from quotations or illustrations. As the artist 
can see the perfect image within the block of unhewn marble, 
so Marshall could see the meaning of the constitution in the 
unexplained writing. 

Said Justice Story: "When I examine a question, I go from 
headland to headland, from case to case; Marshall had a com- 
pass, put to sea, and went directly to his result." 

He excelled in the power of stating a case so clearly, that 
his statements were arguments. He possessed a marvelous 
grasp of principle, a power of logical reasoning that amounted 
to mathematical demonstration, a miraculous insight that 
went straight to the ultimate fact, and a courage that allowed 
no interference with the pursuit of truth. In his development 
of the law as he understood it, — and he instinctively knew 
what the law was, — he recognized neither rank nor power, 
neither rich nor poor, neither favor nor disfavor, neither Re- 
publican nor Federalist, and, as has been well said, "he taught 
angry Presidents and partisan legislatures to bow to the 
majesty of the law." 

Of him the Charleston bar said: "His fame has justified the 
wisdom of the constitution, and reconciled the jealousy of free- 
dom to the independence of the judiciary." 

His greatest work was in judicially defining the jurisdiction 
of the three departments of government as prescribed in the 
constitution. He had mapped out his course in this regard in 
his arguments in the legislature, at public meetings, and in 
Congress. Upon the bench he clothed these arguments with 
judicial authority, and in Marbury v. Madison he did this 
with remarkable force and effect. His opinion in this case 
may be deemed to be as great a document as the Bill of Rights, 
as far-reaching as the Declaration of Independence, as essen- 
tial to the healthy development of our government under the 
constitution as the constitution itself, one of the great bul- 
warks of government under law against personal or popular 
government, a searchlight casting its rays from the dome of 



200 HORACE G. PLATT. 

the temple of justice upon the government, and, like the mod- 
ern X ray, disclosing the orderly arrangement, the distinct and 
separate existence, and the prescribed duties of all its parts, 
and the pre-eminence of the constitution over all. In this 
opinion, Marshall, with infinite tact, but with the clearness of 
the noonday sun, disclosed not only the path along which 
Presidential authority may travel without let or hindrance, 
except that of conscience and its own discretion, but also the 
path along which the Presidential steps are controlled by law 
as rigidly as those of the humblest official. In this opinion 
he revealed to the world how surely and securely the law pro- 
tects the rights of the citizens. In this opinion he judicially 
proclaimed the supremacy of law over President, Congress, and 
the supreme court. In this opinion there was first announced 
to the world the doctrine that the judiciary could declare void 
a law enacted by Congress and approved by the President, if it 
contravened the constitution. Without this power in the 
supreme court, the republic must have foundered on the rocks 
of executive usurpation or on the shoals of legislative tyranny. 

It is impracticable to enumerate the many great constitu- 
tional questions that came before him for settlement, and that 
he settled for all time, but it may be interesting to note a few, 
as illustrative of the importance of his labors in strengthening 
the government and in protecting the rights of the individual. 

One of the most valuable safeguards to the rights of the in- 
dividual is the constitutional provision prohibiting a state from 
passing any law impairing the obligation of a contract. The 
wisdom of placing in the constitution this restraint upon the 
states will never cease to be a matter for congratulation to all 
the people; but at the time of the formation of the Union, 
and thereafter, the states claimed to be omnipotent in local 
matters, to be free to enact any legislation thereon, and recog- 
nized no power in the Federal government to annul their 
laws. 

In a case arising out of a Georgia statute, Marshall had the 
first opportunity to construe this provision, and he held therein 
that a state law granting lands was a contract; that a subse- 
quent law rescinding this grant impaired the obligation of this 
contract, and was therefore in contravention of the constitu- 



JOHN MARSHALL. 201 

tion, and void, and that the supreme court had the power to 
declare state laws, as well as Federal laws, void when they con- 
travened the Federal constitution. 

This same ruling was followed by him in the celebrated 
Dartmouth College case, wherein he held that a charter of a 
corporation was a contract which a state could not impair. 
His opinion in this case is admitted to be the most thorough 
and elaborate exposition of the constitutional sanctity of con- 
tracts to be found in the books. This decision, said Chancellor 
Kent, "did more than any other single act proceeding from 
the authority of the United States to throw an impregnable 
barrier around all rights and franchises derived from the gov- 
ernment, and to give solidity and inviolability to the literary, 
charitable, religious, and commercial institutions of the coun- 
try." 

Owing to this decision, all state constitutions now provide 
that all corporation charters are taken subject to the right of 
the state to alter or repeal them. 

The states were made very jealous of their sovereign rights 
by these decisions, but these were not all his decisions upon 
the relations of the states to the United States. There must be 
some final arbiter as to the meaning of the constitution, and 
Marshall held that the Federal supreme court must be this 
arbiter; that the constitution has provided this tribunal for the 
final construction of itself, and the laws and treaties made 
thereunder, and that this power cannot be exercised in the last 
resort by the courts of every state of the nation. He therefore 
held that the supreme court could set aside the judgment of a 
state court in cases involving a construction of the constitution 
of the United States or the laws of Congress, and that state 
legislatures cannot determine the jurisdiction of the courts of 
the Union, or annul their judgments, or destroy rights acquired 
thereunder. 

In one case that came before the chief justice, the Federal 
government and a state government were squarely arrayed 
against each other. The state of Maryland claimed the right 
to tax the Bank of the United States doing business within its 
borders. The Federal government denied this right on the 
part of the state, whereupon the state denied the constitutional 



202 HORACE G. PLATT. 

right of the Federal government to charter a bank. Here was 
a clash of sovereignties. The constitution was apparently 
silent upon both questions. Marshall held, in a masterly 
opinion, that the creation of the bank was a constitutional 
exercise of the powers of the general government, and that 
state legislation taxing the bank was a tax on the Federal 
government; that it was an invasion of Federal sovereignty, 
which must be supreme, where it exists at all. 

The last of his constitutional decisions which I shall notice 
was of such far-reaching consequence that without it the Union 
must have fallen apart. The state of New York had granted 
to certain parties an exclusive right to navigate all the waters 
of the state by vessels moved by steam. This grant had been 
sustained by all the state courts, even by so great a jurist as 
Chancellor Kent. The chief justice perceived that the asser- 
tion of this right, on the part of a state, struck right at the 
power conferred by the constitution on Congress to regulate 
commerce with foreign nations or among the several states, 
and was in conflict with the acts of Congress which authorized 
vessels employed in the coasting trade to navigate the waters 
of every state, and he held the grant was repugnant to the 
constitution and void. 

Suppose the decision of Chancellor Kent had been affirmed! 
There would have been a barrier at the mouth of every river, 
and commerce would have been so crippled as to destroy the 
Union. 

Chancellor Kent was a great lawyer; his opinions were of 
high authority; they were backed by the public opinion of the 
states, as well as by his great reputation: but Marshall was 
more far-seeing than Kent. Though he appreciated the great 
weight of the opinion of those who maintained this alleged 
right of the states, he did not allow this to affect that inde- 
pendence of judgment that ever distinguished him. He said: 
"It is supported by great names, — by names which have all 
the titles to consideration that virtue, intelligence, and office 
can bestow. No tribunal can approach the decision of this 
question without feeling a just and real respect for that opinion 
which is sustained by such authority; but it is the province of 
this court, while it respects, not to bow to it implicitly; and 



JOHN MARSHALL. 203 

the judges must exercise, in the examination of the subject, 
that understanding which Providence has bestowed upon them, 
with that independence which the people of the United States 
expect from this department of government." 

These questions so decided by Marshall now appear too 
simple to be disputed. But this idea arises from the fact that 
the present generation has grown up to look upon them as self- 
evident constructions of the constitution. 

In Marshall's day, however, they involved the existence of 
the Union as a strong, independent, self-protecting, efficient 
government, and they aroused in their settlement all the 
learning, eloquence, and industry of such lawyers as Wirt, 
Webster, Pinckney, Luther Martin, and others as able. 

Marshall, it is true, was a Federalist, but not in the sense 
that Hamilton was. He was not a liberal constructionist, as 
was Hamilton, nor was he a strict constructionist, as was 
Jefferson. He believed that the constitution must be care- 
fully examined to ascertain if any particular power was therein 
given; that upon him who asserted the existence of the power 
rested the burden of proof, but that if such power was estab- 
lished, the constitution gave all those incidental powers which 
are necessary to its complete and efficient execution. 

With great wisdom, with great common sense, he found the 
constitutional provision that Congress may make all laws 
which shall be necessary or proper for carrying into execution 
the powers vested in the government of the United States, — a 
cornucopia from which could be poured whatever was needed 
to effectuate a constitutional power. " Let the end be legiti- 
mate," said he; "let it be within the scope of the constitution, 
and all means which are appropriate, which are not prohibited, 
but consistent with the letter and spirit of the constitution, 
are constitutional." Thereby he made the constitution an 
instrument that did not, like a strait- jacket, dwarf a growing, 
enterprising, expanding people, but one that has grown with 
the people, and always along the lines of its original design. 

Realizing that the constitution was the sheet-anchor of the 
government, that, like the government, it was "framed for 
ages to come, and was designed to approach immortality as 
nearly as human institutions can approach it," he based his 



204 HORACE G. PLATT. 

constructions upon a patriotism so broad, a logic so inexorable, 
a wisdom so profound, and a prescience so far-reaching, that 
they remain to-day our mainstay and our guide, as applicable 
as when rendered, and give promise to our hopes of their anti- 
cipated immortality. 

We do not say that without Marshall the Union would cer- 
tainly have been dissolved by the centrifugal forces that fought 
for what they called the rights of the states, but we do say that 
Marshall's decisions accomplished the purpose expressed in the 
opening lines in the constitution, to wit, "the formation of a 
more perfect union," and that at that formative period of our 
government he was equal to his great opportunity to bring 
about a more perfect union of the states. 

" The people made the constitution, and the people can un- 
make it," said he. " It is the creature of their own will, and 
lives only by their will. But this supreme and irresistible 
power to make or unmake resides only in the body of the 
people, not in any subdivision of them. The attempt of any 
of the parts to exercise it is usurpation, and ought to be re- 
pelled by those to whom the people have delegated the powel 
of repelling it." This doctrine was the centripetal force that 
welded the many parts called states into the homogeneous 
whole called the Union; this was the doctrine that made the 
Federal government supreme and independent in all matters 
delegated to it by the constitution, without which indepen- 
dence from state interference there could not have been the 
more perfect union designed by the Fathers. 

The especial characteristic of Marshall to which I desire to 
call attention, apart from his great wisdom, was his great 
courage. Many judges are learned and able. Most judges 
are honest. Not so many have the courage of their convic- 
tions. Many are intimidated by the necessity of courting 
popular favor because of their need of popular approval when 
they seek re-election. Some seek popular approval, and mis- 
take the reputation of the moment for the fame that comes 
hereafter and goes not away. Not all appreciate the words of 
Mansfield, who said, while trying the case of Rex v. Wilkes, 
" I wish popularity; but it is that popularity which follows, 
not that which is run after. It is that popularity which 






JOHN MARSHALL. 205 

sooner or later never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble 
ends by noble means. I will not do that which my conscience 
tells me is wrong upon this occasion to gain the huzzas of 
thousands or the daily praise of all the papers which come 
from the press. I will not avoid what I think is right, though 
it should draw on me the whole artillery of libels, all that 
falsehood and malice can invent, or the credulity of a deluded 
populace can swallow." 

Marshall was such a man and such a judge. I have shown 
that he was such a man before he became chief justice. As 
chief justice he was equally so. 

In the Burr trial there was much to influence a weak judge. 
Burr's hands were red with the blood of Hamilton, whom 
Marshall had loved and respected, and whose death he felt 
was a great loss to the country. The President desired and 
did all that he decently could to secure a conviction. The 
people believed Burr guilt} 7 , and demanded his life. So strong 
was this feeling on the part both of the administration and the 
public, that upon Burr's release the United States attorney 
exclaimed: "Marshall has stepped in between Burr and 
death." The President did not hesitate to intimate that his 
acquittal was due to Marshall's Federalistic inclinations, and 
the mob burned the chief justice in effigy. 

But neither the calumnies that the present voiced nor those 
that could be expected of the future deterred Marshall from de- 
ciding as the law prescribed. Said he to the jury, in reference 
to the public clamor: "That this court dares not usurp power, 
is most true. That this court dares not shrink from its duty, is 
not less true. No man is desirous of becoming the peculiar 
subject of calumny. No man, might he let the bitter cup pass 
from him without self-reproach, would drain it to the bottom. 
But if he have no choice in the case, if there be no alternative 
presented to him but a dereliction of duty or the opprobrium 
of those who are denominated the world, he merits the con- 
tempt as well as the indignation of his country, who can hesi- 
tate which to embrace." 

On another occasion he said: "In the argument, we have 
been admonished of the jealousy with which the states of the 
Union view a revising power intrusted by the constitution and 



206 HORACE G. PLATT. 

laws of the United States to this tribunal. To observations of 
this character the answer uniformly given has been, that the 
course of the judicial department is marked out by law. We 
must tread the direct and narrow path prescribed for us. As 
this court has never grasped at ungranted jurisdiction, so will 
it never, we trust, shrink from the exercise of that which is 
conferred upon us." 

Marshall's conscientious appreciation of judicial duty was 
nowhere more apparent than in the matter of the issuing of a 
subpoena to President Jefferson in the Burr trial. After laying 
as his foundation the statement that "in the provision of the 
constitution and of the statute which give to the accused a 
right to the compulsory process of the court, there is no ex- 
ception whatever," he said: "It cannot be denied that to issue 
a subpoena to a person filling the exalted station of chief 
magistrate is a duty which would be dispensed with much 
more cheerfully than it would be performed ! But if it be a 
duty, the court can have no choice in the case." And he issued 
the subpoena, adding the statement, that "whatever difference 
may exist with respect to the power to compel the same obe- 
dience to the process as if it had been directed to a private 
citizen, there exists no difference with respect to the right to 
obtain it." 

"The judicial department," said he, near the close of his 
life, in the Virginia constitutional convention, "comes home 
in its effects to every man's fireside; it passes on his property, 
his reputation, his life, his all. Is it not to the last degree 
important that the judge should be rendered perfectly and 
completely independent, with nothing to control him but God 
and his conscience? I have always thought, from my earliest 
youth till now, that the greatest scourge an angry heaven ever 
inflicted upon an ungrateful and a sinning people was an 
ignorant, a corrupt, or a dependent judiciary." 

In these days, when the press can by daily abuse and crimi- 
nation prevent the re-election of judges whose decisions have 
been honestly rendered, when aggregated capital or aggregated 
labor can secure the defeat of a judge who has neither usurped 
power nor shrunk from his duty, but has simply taken the 
course marked out by law, it is small wonder that an elected 



JOHN MARSHALL. 207 

judiciary is not always independent, without fear and without 
reproach. To our endless glory and good fortune, Marshall 
was independent of official favor or popular prejudice or jour- 
nalistic lampooning. We believe, however, that none of these 
would have affected his decisions, even had Jefferson had the 
power of removing him, or had the voters had the opportunity 
of defeating him at the polls. 

We believe that during the century just opening, with the 
fever of concentration burning in the veins of both capital and 
labor, — the former desiring to accumulate dollars and the lat- 
ter desiring to share them, — with the labor trust controlling the 
votes and the industrial trusts controlling dollars, the need of 
an independent judiciary will become more and more a press- 
ing necessity. On both sides there is right. On each side 
there is often wrong. Each should have equal justice. But 
this even-handed justice must come from an independent 
judiciary, and this independence can be secured only by ap- 
pointment for life or by a long tenure of office and by ample 
compensation. 

It has been said by an orator, in speaking of Marshall, that 
the test of greatness is great ability coupled with great oppor- 
tunity greatly employed. This country will always produce 
men of great ability, and it will always furnish great oppor- 
tunities. These, to be greatly employed upon the bench, must 
be coupled with great independence. 

Marshall, as an individual, was simple in habits, kind in 
disposition, dignified in deportment, courteous and considerate 
towards others, and in thought, in speech, and in conduct ever 
chivalrous towards women. Of his parents he always spoke 
with great reverence and filial piety, and for his wife he had a 
love that grew stronger with the years. If it be true that 
man's ruling passion manifests itself at death, then love of 
wife and parents was his ruling passion, for a few days before 
his death he wrote the following simple inscription for his 
tomb : — 

"John Marshall, son of Thomas and Mary Marshall, was 
born on the 24th day of September, 1755; intermarried with 

Mary Ambler the 3d of January, 1783; departed this life 

day of , 18—." 



208 HORACE G. PLATT. 

Jefferson also wrote his own epitaph, but it was of a differ- 
ent kind. This great Virginian wrote the following: "Author 
of the Declaration of Independence, of the statute of Virginia 
for religious freedom, and founder of the University of Vir- 
ginia." 

Marshall could justly have written as his epitaph, instead 
of the above simple little annal, the words, "If you would 
see my monument, behold your constitution"; for he has been 
well called the second maker of the constitution, its great ex- 
pounder, the father of constitutional law. 

His opponents would have made the constitution a rope of 
sand. His decisions made it a band of steel, that not even a 
civil war could break asunder. 

Under him, in the words of a distinguished foreigner, the 
supreme court became the living voice of the constitution, the 
conscience of the people, the guaranty of the minority. 

Upon the death of Washington, his was the voice to utter of 
him, on the floor of Congress, those memorable words, "First 
in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen." 
The American people will ever associate Marshall with Wash- 
ington in sacred and grateful memory. He was ever the able 
and fearless defender of Washington, and as chief justice took 
up the work where the first President laid it down, and carried 
it on in the spirit of him who began it. It was therefore most 
fit that he should have been the first chairman of the com- 
mittee appointed to erect a monument to Washington. The 
shaft erected by this committee in its simplicity and height 
well portrays the character of Washington. But the real 
monument of both Washington and Marshall, more imperish- 
able than brass or sculptured marble, is this constitutional 
government, that has stood the strain of a civil war, the greater 
strain of accumulated wealth and vast territorial expansion, 
and which starts the new century with great burdens, new 
responsibilities, and unlimited temptations, and with the 
promise of another century's growth along the lines so clearly 
marked out by John Marshall. 

We can well attribute to him the credit of building for all 
time. Though the number of states has increased from thir- 
teen to forty-five, and our territory has expanded from the 



JOHN MARSHALL. 209 

Mississippi to the Pacific, and thence northerly to the land 
that is lit by the aurora borealis, and southerly and westerly 
to the islands of the tropic seas, in whose midnight skies 
glitters resplendent in starry outline God's symbol of hope, 
the Southern Cross, expansion has not weakened the influence 
of the Federal government in the remotest states nor lessened 
their loyalty to the Union. Though a network of railroads 
intersects the land in all directions, like living veins pulsating 
with the hot blood of competition, almost obliterating state 
lines, and though commercial corporations and labor unions 
ramify the country irrespective of political divisions, we are 
still tenacious of our state sovereignties. Though we have 
wars beyond the seas, and foreign complications are increasing 
as our foreign trade grows larger, and innumerable new prob- 
lems in politics and economics are daily arising from our 
rapid internal and external growth, we are still loyal to our 
traditions, undismayed by the difficulties of the present, hope- 
ful of the future, and above all, still wedded to the constitution 
as Marshall construed it, and time but the impression stronger 
makes, as streams their channels deeper wear. 

We gratefully appreciate his breathing into this constitution 
the breath of a vigorous life, his developing this constitution 
along such lines of healthy growth, that each member of our 
Union has been individually stimulated, yet kept in harmony 
with the others and in subjection to all, whereby there has 
been produced a constitutional government under which any 
number of states and territories can live, each in distinct 
existence, but as a united whole, as diverse as the waves and 
yet as united as the sea, capable of any expansion, impossible 
of disruption, powerful because of the individuality of its parts 
and the solidity of its harmonious whole. 

Therefore, to-day, all over this land, — in the capital of the 
Old Dominion, where his labors began, at the capital of the 
nation, where his labors ended, in Philadelphia, where hangs 
old Liberty Bell, that was rent in tolling his funeral knell, in 
all the marts of commerce that border the Atlantic, in the 
cities of the Great Lakes, where throbs the nation's heart, along 
the wide-rolling Mississippi hastening to the sea, at the city of 
the Golden Gate, where the Occident meets the Orient in a 



210 HOEACE G. PLATT. 

sunset greeting, and here in this metropolis of the north, — we 
do reverence to him as one of the greatest Americans. 

Therefore, to-day, in every court in the land, lawyers 
suspend their labors and litigants halt in their contentions 
to listen only to the voice of his eulogist, while Justice 
opens her eyes to behold the glory of her most illustrious 
ministrant. 

Gentlemen of the bench and bar, the fame of lawyers, how- 
ever learned and eloquent they may be, is ephemeral. The 
reputation of judges is but little less evanescent. Their glory 
is in laws honestly administered, in justice impartially 
awarded. To the soldier and to the statesman is it more fre- 
quently given to pitch his tent on Fame's eternal camping- 
ground, to be honored with a niche in the pantheon of the 
great. Few even of these inscribe their names so high that 
they are not obscured by the accumulated dust of a century. 
The legal profession can therefore take pride in the fact, that 
of all the great and good men gone, of the immortal few who 
were not born to die, none stands to-day higher in the respect 
and reverence of the American people than that able lawyer 
and matchless judge, John Marshall, the great chief justice. 
His renown is the richest inheritance of the American bar. 
Above all the high places where the judges sit, his name 
should be written in letters of gold, where the sunlight may il- 
lumine and the dust not obscure, to ever encourage the judge 
to be brave and the lawyer to be true. 

Early yesterday morning, as my train followed a narrow 
stream winding its way to the valley through a mountain 
defile, where the pine trees had a silvery sheen in their gar- 
ments of snow, suddenly there loomed up before me a peak 
o'ertopping all the rest, its snowy crest bright with sunshine. 
It reminded me of Chief Justice Marshall. The stream was 
the republic, winding its then narrow way towards its present 
broad expanse, and high up on the lofty pinnacle of the 
supreme bench, towering above all, was the venerable chief 
justice, — his white hairs illumined by the sunlight of genius, 
— a tall man, sun-crowned, — like that peak, catching the first 
rays of the morning sun, to hold them as a lamp to guide his 
countrymen out of darkness into light. 



JOHN MARSHALL. 211 

With this I close my humble tribute to the memory of 
Chief Justice Marshall. This is the immortelle that in your 
name I place upon his tomb. In honoring him we have 
honored ourselves. 

May the constitution as he construed it continue to be for 
another century our pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire 
by night, so that when another hundred years have gone by, 
this people, still under this constitution, may again take 
pleasure and pride in gratefully honoring the name of John 
Marshall. 



I 



212 HORACE G. PLATT. 



CALIFORNIA. 

[An address made at a "jinks " given by the Bohemian Club of San 
Francisco, May 15, 1901, to President McKinley and his Cabinet.] 

Sire and Gentlemen, — Among the interesting stories that 
flowed from the pen of the author of The Luck of Roaring Camp 
is The Legend of Monte del Diablo. 

Before the gringo came, so runs this legend, a Spanish 
priest left the mission of San Pablo to explore the surrounding 
country, and, mayhap, establish another station of the Cross 
where the heathen could find salvation. He bent his steps 
towards a neighboring mountain, since called Mount Diablo, 
and made its difficult ascent. Arrived at the top, he encoun- 
tered an elderly hidalgo, whom he divined to be his Satanic 
Majesty in disguise. 

After a few moments' conversation, the hidalgo said to the 
priest, "Look to the west," and at the waving of his plumed 
hat the fog melted away, leaving clear the landscape of the 
distant ocean, the bay, the rivers, the mountain defiles, and 
the rolling plains yellow with grain as if carpeted with cloth 
of gold. The good father looked, and he beheld long caval- 
cades of cavaliers defiling from every ravine and canon, all 
marching towards the sea, where stately caravels awaited them; 
and above these marching hosts and from the masts of these 
caravels glittered the cross of Santiago and the royal banners 
of Castile and Aragon. As the priest was gazing at this 
strange spectacle, the hidalgo said, "Thou hast beheld, Sir 
Priest, the departing footprints of adventurous Castile. Thou 
hast seen the declining glory of old Spain. The scepter she 
hath wrested from the heathen is fast dropping from her de- 
crepit and failing grasp. The soil she hath acquired shall be 
lost to her irrevocably." 

The old Churchman raised his priestly hand in benediction, 
and exclaimed, "Farewell, ye gallant cavaliers and Christian 
soldiers! Farewell, thou, Nunez de Balboa! thou, Alonzo de 
Ojeda! and thou, most venerable Las Casas!" 



CALIFORNIA. 213 

"Now look to the east," said the hidalgo, and the father 
beheld advancing through the passes of the snowy mountains 
a strange host, all with the blue eyes and flaxen hair of a 
Saxon race, and at their head waved a tri-colored banner of 
red, white, and blue, inscribed with no religious symbol, but 
only star-bespangled. 

"Behold," said the hidalgo, "the future rulers of this land, 
and of distant islands where Spain now holds sway." 

Mr. President, such is the legend; such we know now is also 
history. The Anglo-Saxon came to this land of the Spaniard 
and founded a state, and he called this state by its Spanish 
name, California; and fifty-one years ago California knocked 
at the door of the Union, and asked for admission into the 
sisterhood of states. Like Minerva, born full-grown from the 
brain of Jove, California was born fully equipped as a state. 
Her letter of credentials was her constitution, wherein she 
pledged herself to freedom. 

She came "neither as a supplicant, nor with the arrogance 
of presumption, but simply that she might be permitted to 
reap the common benefits, share the common ills, and promote 
the common welfare as one of the United States of America." 

Standing without the portal, to her astonished ear there 
came from within mutterings of dissension. With alarm she 
heard the giants of the land forecasting the dissolution of the 
Union if she were admitted with her constitution prohibiting 
slavery. Desirous of enlisting under the banner of freedom, 
she was dismayed to hear that her enlistment was opposed 
because of her self-dedication to the cause of liberty. 

Nay, more! Imagine her surprise when she heard the great 
Webster, the expounder of the constitution, and champion of 
the Union, whose fame, like England's drum-beat, encircled 
the world, thus describe her to the Senate of the United 
States: — 

" California and New Mexico are Asiatic in their formation 
and scenery. They are composed of vast ranges of mountains 
of enormous height, with broken ridges and deep valleys. The 
sides of these mountains are entirely barren, their tops capped 
by perennial snow. There may be in California, and no doubt 
there are, some tracts of valuable land." 



214 HORACE G. PLATT. 

Gentlemen, now that you have traversed our fertile valleys, 
wandered through our orange groves, marveled at the giants 
of our forests, thanked God anew for the beauty of our fields 
carpeted with flowers, and the chromatic glory of our floral 
tapestry, and beheld a Garden of Eden so full of apples that 
there is no temptation to partake thereof, — a Garden of Eden 
so fair that there would have been no fall of man if Adam and 
Eve had had the good fortune to dwell therein, — now that you 
have beheld this golden land by the sunset sea, to which nature 
has been so bountiful, you can appreciate how great the tran- 
sition from 1850 to 1901, from the administration of Taylor to 
that of McKinley, and how distant San Francisco was from 
Washington in those days, when so great a Senator as Webster 
could so misdescribe California. 

But to return to the days of 1850, when California stood at 
the Senate door impatiently listening to the storm that her 
application had aroused. Imagine her delight, after Webster's 
remarkable utterances, in hearing another voice, like silver 
chiming amidst discordant brass, — the voice of one whose 
patriotism was anchored firmly in the Union's strength, whose 
statesmanship was as broad as the continent, and whose faith 
in our future was the inspiration of prophecy, — the voice of 
Seward predicting the westward and wonderful growth of the 
republic, and thus pleading in her behalf: — 

"Let California come in. Every new state, whether she 
come from the East or from the West, — every new state, 
coming from whatever part of the continent she may, — is 
always welcome. But California, that comes from the clime 
where the west dies away into the rising east, — California, 
which bounds at once the empire and the continent, — Cali- 
fornia, the youthful Queen of the Pacific, in her robes of free- 
dom gorgeously inlaid with gold, is doubly welcome." 

In the Congressional Globe this speech is entitled "California, 
Union, and Freedom." We like this title, though we would 
have written it, " Freedom, Union, and California." But, how- 
ever phrased, the words are rightly joined. The winds that 
sweep o'er California's hills and dales, perfumed by the incense 
of blossoming trees and flowering plants, never bore to listen- 
ing ears the clanking of a bondman's chains. 



CALIFORNIA. 215 

Such is her love for the Union, that she has supplemented 
the verdict of Appomattox with a declaration in her Bill of 
Rights, that "the state of California is an inseparable part of 
the American Union." 

Thanks to the independence that Jefferson penned and 
Washington accomplished ! thanks to this Union that Wash- 
ington inaugurated and Marshall consummated, and Lincoln 
and Grant made indissoluble, and that under the wise leader- 
ship of William McKinley has so expanded in territory and 
increased in might and majesty as to attract the wonder and 
arouse the anxiety of the nations ! thanks to the flag of this 
Union, in whose empyrean all the states as stars are fixed 
eternally, like pearls in a sapphire setting, — this state of 
California looks forward to a glorious destiny. 

The star of her destiny is the morning star of the new-born 
century. O'er the Golden Gate it glitters, diademming this 
youthful Queen of the Pacific in her robes of freedom gor- 
geously inlaid with gold. 

Though California must ever bound the continent, she will 
never again bound the empire, for our flag will never retire 
from those islands of the Eastern seas, where fate and valor 
planted it, and where wisdom and valor have maintained it. 



216 HORACE G. PLATT. 



SPEECH AT BANQUET TO CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 

[Delivered at a banquet given to Chauncey M. Depew by the Union 
League Club of San Francisco, April 4, 1896.] 

Mr. President and Gentlemen, — When Mr. Depew began 
to talk about protection, I felt like the farmer when the stran- 
ger guest said to him, during a lag in the conversation, "Now, 
a few words about the tariff," — I was inclined not to listen. I 
have, however, in the last hour or so become a believer in pro- 
tection; for if ever a man needed protection, I need it now, and 
I need it badly. 

In the language of the Senator from Mr. Depew's own state, 
"I am a Democrat"; but there is only one of me, while there 
are about one hundred and fifty of you. My loneliness is, 
however, very much alleviated by the consolation that we 
Democrats are united this evening, while there seems to be 
quite a want of unanimity in your ranks, both in regard to 
candidates and measures. This gives me renewed hope for 
Democratic success, if it is still true that in union there is 
strength. And yet, I am not on this account so proud or so 
puffed up with vainglory that I cannot dine with you and 
gladly contribute my mite in doing honor to this occasion. 

In listening to the eloquent and rather biting Republican 
speeches that have been delivered this evening, I feel that I 
am the typical American spoken of by Bryce in his American 
Commonwealth, — I can applaud a good speech, though I do 
not believe a thing the speaker says. 

We Democrats regret that there are some differences amongst 
you as to who is the best man in your party to be the next 
victim to Democratic infallibility and invincibility, because 
we know of so many Republicans eminently fitted by nature 
and experience to fill this rdle with entire satisfaction to our 
party. We promise him, whoever he shall be, a magnificent 
funeral, and that our hymn of triumph shall be his funeral 



SPEECH AT BANQUET TO CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 217 

dirge. Verily, this shall come to pass, though he be New 
York's son, or Ohio's son, or Alli-son, and with all the 
" Chaunceys " apparently on his side. In this connection, let 
me say to you, somewhat in the words of the Bard of Avon, — 

11 Whilst, like puffed and reckless partisans, 
Yourselves the primrose path of politics tread, 
Pray, wreck not your own Reed." 

I am glad to have this opportunity of hearing Mr. Depew. 
In order to be good and ready for this occasion, I have recently 
read all his speeches, from the one delivered to applauding 
steamboats in honor of Bartholdi's genius and France's gen- 
erosity, to the one spoken at the dedicatory exercises of the 
World's Fair, whose success was phenomenal, although it had 
been predicted by him that it could not succeed unless held in 
the metropolis of the nation. I have learned from these 
speeches much of American history, and something of every 
other subject. I know these speeches by heart. If Mr. Depew 
has his cathode ray with him, he can turn it full upon me and 
read every speech he ever published. The perusal may be de- 
pressing to him, but it will do him good. He will unflinch- 
ingly resolve to cut down his chestnut tree as soon as he re- 
turns home. 

Dogberry has said that comparisons are odorous, but Mr. 
Depew will pardon me if, after this course in ancient and 
modern history, I compare him to one of the New York sky- 
scrapers. He is tall, sun-crowned; but he is built up by piling 
one story on top of another. But, gentlemen, he is like one of 
the sky-scrapers in another respect: he rises above the level of 
his surroundings. He himself, in speaking of another, has 
said, " The man who rises above the level in our metropolitan 
life becomes at once conspicuous." I add to this, "He who 
stays above this level becomes immortal; and Chauncey De- 
pew has stayed there." 

I have been introduced as the president of the Bohemian 
Club, — a club that exchanges courtesies with the Lotus Club, 
of which Mr. Depew is a member. I therefore take this occa- 
sion to officially regret that my club did not have the honor 
and pleasure of entertaining Mr. Depew, and that he has been 



218 HORACE G. PLATT. 

compelled to forego the distinction of being the guest of the 
Bohemian Club. This club is like Mr. Depew; there is but 
one of the kind in the world. It has entertained many men of 
great renown. It has dined Tomaso Salvini, Edwin Booth, 
and Henry Irving, those three of the world's greatest trage- 
dians, whose transcendent dramatic genius found fittest ex- 
pression only in Shakespeare's immortal plays. Its hospital- 
ity did not forget Joseph Jefferson, whose pathos and humor 
brought smiles and tears, like sunshine and rain at once. 
Amongst its guests have been Kalakaua, whose kingdom lay 
in summer seas, like emeralds set in sapphires; Hancock, who 
fought soldiers more successfully than he did politicians; 
George Augustus Sala, who elevated newspaper reporting to 
be one of the learned professions; Henry M. Stanley, the most 
fearless and renowned of explorers, who has not added to his 
fame by changing his nationality; Sir Edwin Arnold, whose 
genius illumined the night of poesy, not only with the Light 
of Asia, but also with the Light of the World; Ysaye, who 
touched his violin, and nations stood entranced; and a host of 
others distinguished in art, letters, music, and song. Such is 
the roll of honor of Bohemia's hospitality. It would have re- 
joiced with exceeding joy to add thereto the name of that 
lawyer, statesman, and railroad president, noted equally for 
his legal ability, his forensic ability, his business ability, his 
sociability, and his amiability; of the most distinguished 
American; of an orator whose reputation for eloquence has so 
filled this land, that every city with feelings of pride now styles 
its most gifted speaker a " Chauncey Depew." 

Sir, you are quoted as having asked a reporter at Los An- 
geles why everything in the West was for sale. There are two 
things in California that are not for sale, — our welcome and 
our hospitality. These, sir, are without price, and cannot be 
purchased with all the wealth of Ormuz or of Ind. We give 
them once to the stranger within our gates. We give them 
twice to the stranger who has become a friend; and that man 
we are glad to make our friend to whom, as you have so truly 
said, " Life is one perpetual enjoyment, in expanding opportu- 
nities, in enjoyable pursuits, and in steadfast friends," and 
who, when past the meridian of life, can say, "After all, the 



SPEECH AT BANQUET TO CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 219 

best things in this world are its friendships and its opportu- 
nities." To such a one, and, sir, thou art the man, we say: — 

11 Of itself our Garden shuts its gate 
On him that's hard, cold, uncompassionate, 
But opens wide its alleys green and still 
To Sesame of Love and Fair Goodwill." 

Thou, sir, hast the Open Sesame — use it when and as often as 
thou desirest. 



HON. W. W. MORROW. 

William W. Moerow was born near Milton, Wayne County, In- 
diana, July 15, 1843. The family moved to Illinois in 1845. He came 
to California in 1859, where he has since resided ; admitted to the bar 
in 1869 ; appointed assistant United States attorney for California in 
1870, and served four years ; delegate to the national Kepublican con- 
vention in 1884, and was chairman of the California delegation in that 
convention ; elected to the forty-ninth Congress for the San Francisco 
district in 1884 ; re-elected in 1886 and in 1888 ; declined renomination 
in 1890. While a member of the House of Eepresentatives, he served 
on the committees on commerce, immigration, foreign affairs, and ap- 
propriations. He was appointed United States district judge for the 
northern district of California by President Harrison, September 18, 
1891, and United States circuit judge for the ninth judicial circuit by 
President McKinley, May 20, 1897. The degree of LL. D. was conferred 
upon Judge Morrow in 1899 by Wabash College, Indiana. He is a trus- 
tee of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D. C. 

CHINESE IMMIGRATION. 

[Speech delivered at the dinner of the Merchants' Association of 
Boston, at the Hotel Vendome, December 29, 1886.] 

Me. President and Gentlemen of the Merchants' As- 
sociation of Boston, — I desire to thank you very cordially 
for the opportunity of being present on this interesting oc- 
casion; not because I esteem the invitation to partake of your 
generous hospitality as a personal compliment to myself, but 
because I consider it as an act of friendship and good feeling 
toward a section of the country that I happen to represent, in 
part, in an official way. [Applause.] I do not know whether 
you are accustomed to claim relationship with California, now 
that we have grown up; but when we were young, had blue 
eyes, rosy, dimpled cheeks, and a profusion of golden hair, I 
think you were rather proud of us, and were often heard to 
claim some relationship; and perhaps our precocious youth 
seemed to justify the suspicion that your claim had a reason- 
able if not a responsible foundation. [Applause.] 

220 



CHINESE IMMIGRATION. 221 

New England enterprise was early upon the scene on the 
western shore. The first American vessel to anchor in a Cali- 
fornian port was a Boston ship, named The Otter, in 1796. 
She was commanded by Ebenezer Dorr, and had evidently 
been equipped by some descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, 
for with Puritan faith she carried six guns, and a passport 
signed by General Washington. The guns were for pirates, 
and the passport of our first President served as an entry and 
clearance paper for any port in the civilized world. 

At that time the people of California, under Spanish rule, 
were not permitted to trade with foreigners, but The Otter 
found no difficulty, on her papers and accompanying exhibits, 
in obtaining necessary supplies from the friendly Spaniards. 

In 1822, direct trade between California and Boston was 
opened by the voyage of the ship Sachem, of the latter place. 
She took out an assorted cargo of merchandise, and exchanged 
it for hides and tallow, and from this small beginning has 
grown the splendid commerce of to-day. 

In 1832, there went to California, Mr. Thomas O. Larkin, a 
native of Charlestown, Massachusetts, to whom the country is 
indebted perhaps more than to any other one man for the 
acquisition of that territory. He was the first, and in fact the 
only, American consul in that country, and he discharged his 
official duties so well, that he won the confidence of all parties 
during the stirring events which terminated with the admission 
of California into the Union. 

The visit of Mr. Dana in 1835, and the charming narrative 
of his adventures in that distant land, in Tioo Years Before the 
Mast, had an influence in attracting the attention of the world 
in that direction. 

I might go on and multiply examples of these early and 
of later associations, some of them exceedingly interesting and 
instructive, but it is not necessary to the present purpose. 
There are, perhaps, gentlemen present who can read much of 
our history in the record of their own business enterprises on 
the shores of the Pacific. With the discovery of gold, and the 
subsequent development of agriculture and other industries, 
your well-trained young men came among us and formed a 
part of that new population charged with the responsible duty 



222 HON. W. W. MORROW. 

of building up a state. Massachusetts is therefore entitled to 
have an interest in our welfare, and we in turn claim the right 
to advise you of some of the difficulties we have encountered, 
that you may aid us in maintaining correct and enduring 
principles of government, which, we know, are as dear to you 
as they are to us. [Applause.] 

There has been some discussion of the tariff question, in 
which we are all deeply interested. I hope we are all in favor 
of the policy of protecting American labor. It seems to me 
that it is an underlying principle in the powers and duties 
conferred upon our general government. [Applause.] But we 
on the Pacific Coast are confronted with this question in 
another form. While you are dealing with the products of 
cheap labor seeking admission into the country through your 
custom-houses, we have the more menacing form of Asiatic 
cheap labor itself in our very midst, and more to come, unless 
some effective restraint is put upon it by the general govern- 
ment. We are in the habit of saying, in justification of our 
opposition to this immigration, that the Chinese do not assimi- 
late with us; that, while living among us, they maintain a 
separate and distinct social organization, not in harmony with 
our institutions. This is true, but it is only a small part of the 
truth. Their objectionable character has been more accurately 
stated in this respect by a Chinese statesman, in reply to a 
question propounded by our Minister Young a few years ago. 
Mr. Young asked why it was the Chinese government did not 
encourage colonization in some new country, pointing out sev- 
eral places where this might be accomplished. Our minister 
says he was struck with the reply. "My people," this Chinese 
statesman said, "are not colonists. They have not the faculty 
for colonization, which has built up so many countries in vari- 
ous parts of the world under Western influences. They can- 
not take the lead. They must live upon civilization of some 
kind; seek it out and attach themselves to it." Whoever 
studies the history of China must come to the conclusion that 
this is a correct statement of the Chinese character. The 
Chinaman is not a pioneer, and, out of his own country, must 
live on some one else. Whenever the Chinaman has come 
into contact with another race, he has either overpowered it 



CHINESE IMMIGRATION. 223 

by force of numbers, preyed upon its vitality and destroyed it, 
or he has been repelled. He has never assimilated. He is a 
parasite upon any civilization to which he becomes attached. 
He absorbs, but gives nothing back to the productive forces 
upon which he fattens. In San Francisco, the Chinese inhabit 
a portion of the city by themselves, from which point they 
reach out and seize upon any industry they can readily grasp. 
This process of absorption is going on all the time, and, like a 
growing tumor, is enlarging its area every day. Our China- 
town is a counterpart of a section of Canton; but if it were in 
Canton, where it properly belongs, instead of being in San 
Francisco, we could protect our mechanical industries at the 
custom-house. But situated as it is on American soil, it of 
course defies this method of control. If allowed to extend, 
Chinese competition must inevitably destroy all free white 
labor with which it comes in contact. 

Another feature of this question is, that the Chinama.n is 
himself an objectionable person, apart from his labor. He 
does not come among us with any sympathy or regard for our 
free institutions. He is not seeking liberty, has no desire for 
it, and does not avail himself of it when he has the opportu- 
nity. His immigration is generally under a contract that 
binds him to a condition but little better than slavery. It is 
true, the contract is void under our laws; but that avails him 
nothing. If he desired to free himself from its obligations, 
which is doubtful, he would find that the power of the Six 
Companies over him would override the provisions of an act 
of Congress. He does not come to stay and become a part of 
the body politic, but he expects to return to his native land 
sooner or later, and be buried with his fathers. He has no in- 
terest in the country and takes no pride in its development. 
He comes to earn money, and as fast as he accumulates it, he 
sends it back to China. It has been estimated by persons 
competent to judge of such matters, that California has been 
drained of over two hundred million dollars in this way during 
the past twenty-five years. Ireland very justly complains that 
her wealth is being squandered by her landlords in other 
countries. California is suffering from an equally vicious 
system of absorption at the hands of her Chinese population. 



224 HON. W. W. MORROW. 

In San Francisco there are nearly fifty thousand Chinamen, 
or about as many Chinamen as there are voters. Of this 
number, only fifty-seven are reported as living with families, — 
that is to say, having wives. 

There are many reasons that will occur to any intelligent 
person why such an alien population ought not to exist in an 
American community. It is manifest that the very presence 
of such a class in such numbers is demoralizing in its influence, 
and destructive of the most essential qualities of our industrial 
civilization. Many well-disposed people, particularly here in 
Massachusetts, do not share our sentiments on this question, 
but they do not see the Chinaman as we do. They see him 
only individually, and in the character of a quiet, industrious 
laborer. In this capacity he has had consideration with us, 
but when we found him, as a class, destitute of fundamental 
moral qualities, and his industry that of the leech, we saw he 
could have no proper or permanent place in our social or in- 
dustrial affairs. The perpetuity of our republican form of gov- 
ernment is going to depend very greatly upon our continuing 
as a homogeneous people. The introduction of classes of peo- 
ple not in accord with our institutions will necessarily breed 
antagonisms, and with a dense population, this means dis- 
integration. 

We on the Pacific Coast are facing a nation of nearly four 
hundred millions of people. We are holding the western gate 
against an invasion, that, unrestrained, would be appalling. 
We ask you candidly to consider the situation and see if we 
are not right upon this important question. The Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher is reported as having said that when a lion eats 
an ox, the ox becomes lion, not the lion ox. The purpose of 
this illustration was, evidently, to show that immigration to 
this country is consumed in the great American nation and 
assimilated. To this proposition the Rev. Josiah Strong very 
wittily and forcibly replies that the illustration would be very 
neat if only illustrated. The lion, happily, has an instinct 
controlled by an unfailing law, which determines what and 
when and how much he shall eat. If that instinct should fail, 
and he should some day eat a badly diseased ox, or should 
very much overeat, we might have on our hands a very sick 



CHINESE IMMIGRATION. 225 

lion. "I can conceive," says he, "that under such conditions 
the ignoble ox might slay the king of beasts." Then follows 
this very significant conclusion: "The lion, without being con- 
sulted as to time, quantity, or quality, is having the food 
thrust down his throat, and his only alternative is to digest or 
die." This is our position on the Pacific Coast with reference 
to unrestricted Chinese immigration. We have had enough of 
it. It does not agree with us. We cannot digest it, and, de- 
siring to live, we want less of it, and more of some other kind. 
To any people who will come to our shores, and, contributing 
as best they may to the general welfare, aid in the building 
up of homes and the establishment of free schools, we give a 
cordial welcome. We have room for many such. [Applause.] 
But we have not room for those who would destroy free labor, 
undermine our political institutions, and, introducing pagan- 
ism and social disturbances into American civilization, bring 
upon us the inevitable conflicts arising out of such antagon- 
isms. [Applause.] 



226 HON. W. W. MORROW. 



GENERAL PHILIP KEARNY. 

[The old hall of the House of Representatives in the Capitol at Wash- 
ington has been set aside by Congress as a national statuary hall, for the 
purpose of receiving from the several states statues in marble or bronze, 
not exceeding two in number for each state, of deceased persons who 
have been citizens thereof, and illustrious for their historic renown, or 
distinguished for civil or military services such as each state may deem 
to be worthy of national commemoration. In accordance with this pur- 
pose, the state of New Jersey selected the statesman, Richard Stockton, 
and the soldier, Philip Kearny, to represent her in this national 
statuary hall ; and on the occasion of the ceremony of placing these two 
statues in position in the hall, the state invited Mr. Morrow, then a 
Representative in Congress from California, to speak for the Pacific 
Coast. The ceremony took place in the House of Representatives on 
August 21, 1888. Mr. Morrow on that occasion spoke as follows : — ] 

Mr. Speaker, — The people of California would unite to-day 
with their brethren of New Jersey in paying a grateful tribute 
to the distinguished character and eminent public services of 
General Philip Kearny. 

The name of Kearny is familar to our people in the Far West, 
— more, perhaps, on account of the conspicuous figure of Gen- 
eral Stephen W. Kearny in public affairs on the Pacific Coast 
in that eventful period which marked the transfer of authority 
in California from Mexican rule to American occupation and 
control. But General Philip Kearny, who was a nephew of 
our distinguished pioneer, was himself identified with some of 
the important events in the early history of the Pacific Coast. 
He came to California immediately after the close of the war 
with Mexico, holding an important command in the army. 
In this position he rendered most timely and gallant services 
against the hostile Indians then infesting northern California 
and southern Oregon. 

General Philip Kearny was admired as an able and daring 
soldier, and as one of the conspicuous heroes who won for this 
country the rich and fruitful territory stretching from the Rio 
Grande to the Pacific, and, with Texas, including a domain 



GENERAL PHILIP KEARNY. 227 

equal to one hundred and four states as large as the state of 
Massachusetts. It may be that there were political motives 
involved in the war with Mexico that would not now receive 
popular approval or partisan support, but the results achieved 
were inevitable. 

The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was not merely the terms 
of peace agreed upon for the cessation of hostilities between 
two contending armies. It was the necessary and unavoidable 
readjustment of boundaries for the United States to accommo- 
date the activities of an expanding civilization. It anticipated 
the advance of an enterprising, adventurous people and the 
needs of a growing, industrious population. 

The mighty forces of nature that formed this continent and 
made a way for the waters of the north to descend to the Gulf, 
decreed that in the economy of human affairs the great interior 
basin should become the home of one great homogeneous 
people, united in the ties of a common government and actu- 
ated by the hopes of a common destiny. It was also then 
established that this same people, whose energy and enterprise 
should subdue the forces of nature along the banks of the 
Mississippi, would follow the course of the stars and plant 
their flag by the shores of the Pacific. The prophetic vision 
of Bishop Berkeley saw all this in the very dawn of the move- 
ment, when he wrote, — 

"Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 
The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; 
Time's noblest offspring is the last." 

But through what infinite trials, tribulations, and human 
hardships all this was to be accomplished! Precious lives 
were to be sacrificed; brave men were to face dangers and 
prove their loyalty to their country at the extremest peril. 
General Kearny was one of these brave men. His country 
was on the march, and he took commanding service. He knew 
no fear. As a soldier, he was always in the very midst of the 
fiery conflict; he was the first at the breach and the last to 
abandon the assault; he never retreated; he was always in 
advance; he was the first man in the American army to enter 
the City of Mexico during the progress of hostilities. 



228 HON. W. W. MORROW. 

There were heroes before Agamemnon; there have been 
many since, but none more deserving of special distinction for 
personal bravery than General Philip Kearny. 

Where was there a more attractive figure among all the 
military heroes of our late Civil War? He was the embodi- 
ment of the restless patriotism of the Union forces. His 
coming anywhere on the field of battle was an event. He rep- 
resented the fury of the storm when the elements are at war. 
He was the man for the supreme moment of a crisis. Such 
men always command the confidence of their friends and the 
respect of their foes. 

" We all knew him and respected him," says General Long- 
street of General Kearny. 

There is something grand in the lofty spirit of these grim 
warriors facing death at every turn, and even perceiving 
humor in catastrophe. General Kearny lost his left arm at 
the attack on the San Antonio gate at the entrance to the City 
of Mexico. General Howard lost his right arm at Fair Oaks, 
in the Civil War. Kearny was present when Howard's shat- 
tered arm was being amputated. Howard, looking at Kearny's 
empty sleeve, remarked, " We will buy our gloves together 
hereafter." These two brave commanders had the wit and 
humor belonging to genius. 

It is proper that such a brave soldier as General Kearny 
should be honored by the state from which he hailed to enter 
the service of his country, and that his splendid military fig- 
ure should be placed in this Capitol to remind the coming 
generations of men of the distinction the republic would con- 
fer upon those who fearlessly and loyally served her cause. 
[Applause.] 



THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 229 



THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

[Delivered at the Chamber of Commerce, San Francisco, February 
13, 1899, as an address of welcome to Rear-Admiral Lord Charles Beres- 
ford.] 

When our distinguished guest stated that the policy he 
would have for Great Britain in China was peace, trade, and 
civilization, he expressed in three words the unity of purpose 
which is to-day drawing together the Anglo-Saxon people. 
For more than a hundred years this has been the policy of the 
American nation. It was declared by Mr. Jefferson in his 
first inaugural address, when he said that "peace, commerce, 
and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances 
with none," were essential elements in our political faith. We 
have kept that faith; indeed, we have kept it in such orthodox 
terms, that our exclusiveness has been a subject of criticism. 

But it has been said, in justification of this policy, that so 
long as we continued politically independent, and free from 
all foreign influences and complications, we should avoid 
the oppressive evils of military force and rule, and secure for 
ourselves that reward and freedom of industry which alone 
could make us a prosperous and a happy people; and as for 
our commercial relations, while cotton, wool, and breadstuffs 
were our chief productions, we had only to look to Europe (no 
part of which could be unfriendly) for a free, open market for 
all our surplus. 

When the time came, however, for us to expand our indus- 
tries, and engage in manufacturing enterprises on a large 
scale, producing cotton and woolen goods, and converting our 
timber, coal, and iron ore into iron and steel for the building 
of railways, telegraphs, and steamships, it was said with equal 
earnestness, that the inevitable day had come when our 
trade and commerce must enter competitive fields, and that 
we must accept the political obligations and responsibilities 
attending that relation as a world power. 



230 HON. W. W. MORKOW. 

This is true, in a measure; but it does not follow that we are 
prepared to abandon at once and altogether the system that 
has brought us to our present state of development and pros- 
perity. If we are to enter the arena where nations strive for 
advantage, we must do so with a caution that will not over- 
look the risk to our own commercial and political indepen- 
dence. We must not surrender principles upon which our gov- 
ernment has been founded, nor tacitly assume obligations we 
cannot surely fulfill. [Applause.] With this passing sugges- 
tion, we can dismiss any further reference to our own system, 
and notice the other elements of a commercial policy, so 
frankly expressed by our guest when he says that trade in the 
Orient requires protection. 

Beside the open door of exchange must stand the guardian 
of the peace, the representative of law and order. This is the 
"white man's burden" in establishing peace, trade, and civili- 
zation among the less enlightened and less commercial nations 
of the earth. Are we ready to assume our share of this burden? 
Perhaps we could not avoid it if we would. 

Our guest comes to us from a mission of this character, of 
the highest importance to both Great Britain and the United 
States. He is fortunate in the time of his arrival among us. 
He could hardly have chosen a more opportune season. Our 
minds have been prepared for just such a mission by the re- 
markable events of the past year, — events which have wrought 
consequences we did not anticipate, and brought responsibili- 
ties we did not seek. In this situation we desire to know our 
duty, and our whole duty, as a nation; and being advised, we 
will perform it to the best of our ability. 

Our guest is therefore cordially welcome. He is welcome 
for the sake of his country, — a nation akin to our own. He is 
welcome for the sake of the service in which he holds an hon- 
orable and distinguished place, — a service conspicuous for its 
wonderful history and splendid traditions. And we welcome 
him none the less for himself, for his personal qualities and 
his nobly well-earned reputation. [Applause.] He has proved 
himself great in council as well as on the quarter-deck; as for- 
midable in the Commons as he is against his country's foes in 
the shock of arms. And believing as we do that "blood is 



THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 231 

thicker than water," we recall with pleasure and applaud 
again the signal of the British Admiral, "Well done, Condor!" 
[Applause.] And if our cousins across the sea will permit us 
to share with them in the affectionate title of "Our own Char- 
lie," we will give them in return the privilege of sharing with 
us the name of "Our own Dewey." [Applause.] 

But, aside from these personal matters, the mission from 
which our guest is returning is a most important and interest- 
ing one. The affairs of the Chinese Empire present the 
strangest problem of modern times. No one can possibly 
foresee the effect of the changes impending and now occurring 
in the political system of that ancient people. But it is a 
subject for congratulation, and also full of hope for the future, 
that the earnest attention of thoughtful men is engaged, who 
would solve the problem for the benefit of mankind. As a 
nation, we are beginning to see that we are deeply interested 
in the affairs of Asia and its commercial future; and if it is 
true that the Pacific Ocean is ours, it is impossible to over- 
estimate our future possibilities in that direction. Certainly, 
we of the Pacific Coast are called upon to give the subject the 
most serious consideration. 

It would seem that the "open-door policy," so far as it may 
be consistent with our own system, should command our sup- 
port. But, in any event, the observations and deductions of 
Lord Charles Beresford must necessarily be valuable and in- 
structive, and we shall await them with an interest all the 
greater since we have met the author in his own person. 

If events so shape themselves that in the future we shall be 
compelled to take upon ourselves some share in these affairs 
of nations, as now seems probable, and if we shall be called 
upon to extend our power and influence in the direction of the 
Orient, as now seems inevitable, we shall doubtless derive en- 
couragement and wisdom in our task from the means employed 
and the success achieved by the government of which our 
guest is a member. Great Britain has certainly been the great 
power of our day in establishing among the nations of the 
earth the civilizing influences of trade and commerce, and in 
this advance her flag has stood as the emblem of law and 
order, securing ultimate individual liberty. Here we are in 



232 HON. W. W. MORROW. 

entire accord, and our ideals of an efficient, beneficent govern- 
ment are the same. In this cause we plant alongside of her 
banner our own starry flag of freedom. Let us hope that 
upon whatever land or sea they may float, they will ever rep- 
resent individual liberty, national honor, and justice. [Ap- 
plause.] 

We wish our guest a safe return to his home, and congratu- 
late him in anticipation of the reward he will receive in the 
gratitude of a grateful people. [Applause.] 






IRVING M. SCOTT. 



Irving Murray Scott was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, at 
Hebron Mills, about eighteen miles north of the city of Baltimore ; was 
educated at Milton Academy, and had the great advantage of learning 
the iron and wood- working trade under Obed Hussey, inventor of the 
reaping-machine. He afterwards learned marine engineering, mechani- 
cal drawing, and German, and came to California in 1860. Here he be- 
came chief draftsman for the Union Iron Works in 1861. In 1863 he 
accepted a position with the Miners' Foundry, but returned, in the fall 
of the same year, to the Union Iron Works as superintendent, and 
almost immediately thereafter was made general manager, which posi- 
tion he held, with that of vice-president, until this firm was absorbed 
by the United States Ship-Building Company. In 1865 he became a 
member of the firm of H. J. Booth and Company. He was a member 
of the reception committee appointed to receive the Japanese embassy 
in 1873, and was also a member of the reception committee to receive 
General Grant on his return from his trip around the world. He has 
been president of the Washington Irving Literary Society, 1857-60 ; 
Addisonian Literary Society, 1863-65 ; Howard Street Literary Society, 
1865-69*, Mechanics' Institute, 1878-80; Authors' Carnival, 1880; Art 
Association, 1876-81 ; Young Men's Eepublican Club, 1865-72. Mr. Scott 
was also president of the California State Commission to the Columbian 
Exposition, Chicago, 1892-93. He was one of the original trustees of the 
San Francisco Free Public Library, appointed by the governor ; a trustee 
of the Leland Stanford Junior University ; and park commissioner of the 
city and county of San Francisco. He was elected a member of the Free- 
holders to frame a charter for the city and county of San Francisco, 
and appointed to a convention of one hundred to formulate the charter 
in 1896. In the same year he was a Presidential elector on the Repub- 
lican ticket. He is a member of the Pacific Union Club, Bohemian 
Club, University Club, Union League Club, and the Press Club, of San 
Francisco, of the Burlingame Club of San Mateo, and of the Lawyers' 
Club of New York. He was elected a director of the Central Pacific 
Railway in 1898. He is also president of the Commercial Museum of 
San Francisco, and was a member of the international congress which 
met at Ostend on August 23, 1902. Mr. Scott has made one trip around 
the world. In the interest of American ship-building he visited Russia, 
Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and England in 1898, to induce the govern- 
ments of those countries to purchase war-ships, etc., in the United 
States. He was a prominent member and president of the committee 

233 



234 IRVING M. SCOTT. 

appointed to receive President McKinley on his visit to San Francisco 
in 1901, and a member of the committee for the McKinley funeral ex- 
ercises, and vice-president of the McKinley Monument Committee of 
San Francisco. The degree of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred upon 
him by the University of Santa Clara, in honor of his distinguished ser- 
vices to the state of California. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 

[Delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of the Academy of Sciences 
of San Francisco, July 12, 1889.] 

Mr. President, Trustees, and Members of the Academy 
of Sciences, — It is with no little diffidence that I attempt to 
address you at this time. The exalted character of your soci- 
ety — known and honored for its profound learning throughout 
the entire world — might well deter from the undertaking one 
more gifted by nature and riper in scholarship than myself. 

I am mindful, too, that the world will pronounce upon what 
is said and done here this day. The laying of the corner-stone 
of the edifice of the Academy of Sciences of San Francisco 
constitutes an occasion of no ordinary moment; and were the 
limiting veil of mortality drawn aside, who shall say that it 
would not discover as a most earnest participant the presence 
of him whose munificent bequest is its causa causansf 

But whether this might occur — real or ideal — affects not 
our grateful remembrance of his magnanimous and generous 
deed. 

This magnificent structure, whose corner-stone we this day 
lay, will be a monument, — a Pharos, whose beams of light 
will not only effect the grand object of enlightening and ele- 
vating man adown the course of time, but will transmit to the 
latest posterity the name of James Lick as one of the greatest 
benefactors to science of his time. 

The subject upon which I propose to speak on this occasion 
is The Development of Science. 

Time embraces a record of all events: some are recorded in 
the pages of history, some on the tablets of the earth, and some 
on the scroll of the heavens. The object of science is, so far 
as possible, to apprehend these events and the laws of their 
occurrence. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 235 

In its development, science may be likened to a river, with 
its branches, sources, drainage area, — in fine, its environment. 
Exploration finds the water, as a source of the river, spread 
over the surface of the drainage area, or diffused through its 
various underlying formations, — also finds the water, on 
account of its powerfully solvent qualities, largely impregnated 
with the properties of the surface accumulations of the drain- 
age area and the underlying strata. 

From this diffuse condition the water gathers into streams, 
— in some cases direct; in others, through the medium of re- 
ceptacles, which impart their character to it. 

Thus on one hand it springs forth as from Castalian fount, 
and on the other, creeps sluggishly along as from Serbonian 
bog. 

As the case may be, in the formation of these streams, they 
eventually unite into larger ones, and these into ones larger 
still, and so on till the river flows as a unit. 

Within the scope of the river, inclusive of its drainage area, 
— its environment, — obtain all that is known of existence and 
occurrence: of nature in her sublimity, ruggedness, delicacy, 
and beauty, and of man in his multifarious relations and 
works. 

In all these things, ipse dixit affirms on one hand the work 
of supernatural agency, and on the other, that of chance; while 
philosophy, from experiment and reason, determines that all 
is governed by unchangeable and irresistible law; that the 
same law which causes the raindrop to fall holds the earth in 
its orbit, and in like manner governs throughout the universe. 

Philosophy further teaches that all phenomena, whether 
physical, intellectual, social, or moral, are aspects resulting 
from the operation of law. Science itself is an exemplification 
of this form of government. 

As a river, whether considered as seen in its elementary 
falling drops, or struggling with obstruction, or smoothly glid- 
ing between its banks, or wildly leaping the cataract, or flow- 
1 ing majestically in unity toward its destiny, is governed by 
the law of gravity, so science, in its every form and aspect, is 
seen gravitating by no less certain law toward and into a har- 
monious whole. 



236 IRVING M. SCOTT. 

It would exceed the limit of my powers to pursue uninter- 
ruptedly the development of science in its flow from its origin 
to the present, or from the present to its origin, or even to 
meander one of its branches. Let it suffice, then, to examine 
and compare, one with the other, some of the most prominent 
features which it presents at different points of its progress. 

Man on first waking to consciousness naturally inquires, 
Where am I? Whence came I? and, Whither shall I go? In 
answer, Young's Night Thoughts would have him say, — 

"I nothing know but that I am, 
And since I am, conclude something immortal." 

Like the child, he fears darkness, and regards it the abode 
of goblins lurking in its gloom to injure him. In the develop- 
ment of his intellectual faculties, imagination seems to take 
the lead. It peoples the earth, air, and sky with beings of its 
own creation. Unchecked by reason, it refers any unexpected 
sound or sudden motion to invisible beings. It perceives no 
inconsistencies, holding that all things are possible with the 
invisible. 

It gives to every grotto a genius, and to every tree, shrub, 
blade of grass, spring, stream, and mountain a divinity. It 
assigns the glade and grove to nymphs, and the cavern and 
thicket to bogles. 

At this stage in the development of his mind, man is ex- 
tremely credulous, believing in sorcery, witchcraft, and en- 
chantments. He believes without investigation. With respect 
to physical phenomena, he takes for granted that the sky, 
holding in its embrace the sun, moon, and stars, revolves, as 
it seems to do, about the earth, and further, that this and all 
natural phenomena are produced by supernatural agency. 
He personifies the forces of nature, and attributes to them in- 
telligence and sensibility as far exceeding his own as their 
power is seen to exceed his. Thus the invisible spirit of the 
wind is iEolus; that of the motions of the sea, Neptune; and 
that of the air and sky, Jupiter. Thunder and lightning are 
conceived to result from the wrath of Jupiter, which at times 
becomes so great as to threaten the destruction of the universe. 

With respect to the personification of heat, or rather its 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 237 

absence, cold, the first Greeks affirmed that beyond the moun- 
tains to the north reigned a Cimmerian darkness, an everlast- 
ing winter. It was the realm of Boreas, the shivering tyrant. 

Dreams, the offspring of unbridled imagination, perform no 
unimportant part in the development of the faculties of the 
mind. 

They assure man of spiritual beings and of their abodes. 
They enable him to ascend in the twinkling of an eye to the 
Elysian fields and view with delight their matchless beauties 
and the inexpressible joys of their immortal hosts, or to 
descend as quickly to Tartarean realms and witness the most 
excruciating tortures susceptible of conception by the imagi- 
nation. 

These unrealities are to him facts. The myth of Tantalus 
to his mind is a reality. His dream produces and confirms it 
as an indisputable truth, because it is a dream. He beholds 
Tantalus immersed in water to his chin, and branches bending 
with the weight of their fruit over his head, — doomed by his 
father Jupiter ever to thirst and hunger. 

He sees the water recede as often as Tantalus attempts to 
1 drink, and the branches recede by the motion of the wind as 
often as he attempts to pluck their inviting fruit. 

He also sees Phlegyas in perpetual terror of the stone sus- 
pended over him, which never falls; Ixion chained to his 
wheel; the daughters of Danaus still vainly trying to fill their 
sieve; and Sisyphus despairingly laboring at his ever-descend- 
| ing stone. At the point of development now being considered, 
credulity is a prominent feature of the mind. In fact, the 
more wonderful the tale, the more readily will the mind accept 
it as true. Thus mythology has its origin in imagination and 
credulity. Its. votary as implicitly believes that Otos and 
jEphialtes, in order to ascend into heaven, placed Ossa on 
Pelion and other mountains about, and were killed for their 
temerity by the arrows of Apollo, as does Christendom believe 
that the building of the Tower of Babel was undertaken and 
prosecuted for a like purpose, and that the confusion of lan- 
guage was the consequence, lest the builders might effect their 
object. Mythology is his gospel. It is the primitive gospel. 

Reference to the history of the human family renders this 



238 IRVING M. SCOTT. 

conclusion unavoidable. It was the gospel of India, Egypt, 
Greece, Rome, Britain, Germany, America, — in fact, of the 
world. The mythologies of these different countries may differ 
somewhat as to particulars, but so similar are they in general 
character, that they seem referable to a common source. That 
source would seem to be an inherent property of the mind 
itself. Lord Brougham very justly remarks, "Man naturally 
is a religious being." As before said, imagination peoples the 
earth, air, and sky with beings of its own creation, and ascribes 
to them intelligence and powers vastly transcending those of 
man. These creations or ideals originating in the mind itself 
become its divinities. Their number and power are limited 
only by the fertility of the imagination. Reference to history 
shows that belief in the supernatural is subject to the law of 
aggregation; that, beginning with many divinities, it arrives 
at its highest state of perfection when it confers all their 
attributes of power, wisdom, and goodness upon one. As a 
river results from the aggregation of numerous smaller streams, 
so does monotheism result from polytheism. 

During the regime of polytheism, or at this stage in the de- 
velopment of the faculties of the mind, science is limited for 
the most part to trickling drops, or, at best, to tiny streams 
struggling with the obstacles of mystery and mysticism. 

The errors of fiction having been often controverted by facts, 
doubts arise in the mind as to the infallibility of the imagina- 
tion, or soundness of its creations. 

Thereupon inquiry is made. Thus in the development of 
the faculties, the mind passes from the fictitious state to that 
of the metaphysical. The transition is not sudden, but occurs 
by insensible gradations; in fact, the latter seems but a modi- 
fication of the former. 

In the former, the mind " seeks the essential nature of 
beings, the first and final causes of all effects, and supposes all 
phenomena to be produced by the immediate action of super- 
natural beings." In the latter, " the mind supposes, instead 
of supernatural beings, abstract forces, veritable entities in- 
herent in all beings and capable of producing all phenomena." 

From all that we can gather from the past, the metaphysical 
stage seems most conspicuous first in Greece. This to no little 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 239 

extent may be due to the circumstance that Greece has trans- 
mitted to us more of its history and learning than other coun- 
tries have of theirs. Facts seem not wanting to demonstrate 
that India enjoyed a high intellectual culture long prior to 
the origin of the Greek nation, nor to confirm the truth of the 
saying of the Egyptian priests, " You Greeks are mere chil- 
dren, talkative and vain. You know nothing at all of the 
past." 

Thales held that water is the first principle, saying that 
without moisture his own body would not have been what it 
was, but a dry husk. He maintained that humidity was the 
source of heat, and that the sun and stars derived their aliment 
out of the sea at the time of their rising and setting. 

Anaximenes asserted that air is the first principle. "On 
it," he remarks, " the very earth itself floats like a broad leaf." 
He attributed affinity to it, and held that the human soul 
itself is nothing but air, since life consists in inhaling and ex- 
haling it. Apollonius, going a step further than Anaximenes, 
attributes intelligence to air, saying: "It knows much; for 
without reason it would be impossible for all to be arranged so 
duly and proportionately as that all should maintain its fitting 
measure, winter and summer, night and day, the rain, the 
wind, and fair weather; and whatever object we consider will 
be found to have been ordered in the best and most beautiful 
manner possible." 

Heraclitus maintained that the first principle is fire. Thus 
he laid down as an axiom, " All is convertible into fire, and 
fire into all." 

Anaxagoras held that the universe, as a whole, is unchange- 
able. Thus he says, "Wrongly do the Greeks suppose that 
aught begins or ceases to be; for nothing comes into being or 
is destroyed, but all is an aggregation or secretion of pre- 
existent things, so that all becoming might more correctly be 
called becoming mixed, and all corruption becoming separate." 

Pythagoras asserts that " number is the essence or first prin- 
ciple of things." This dogma recognizes two species of num- 
bers, the even and odd; and since one or unity must be both 
even and odd, it must be the very essence of number, and the 
ground of all other numbers; hence the meaning of the Py- 



240 IRVING M. SCOTT. 

thagorean expression, " All comes from one." Extraordinary 
importance attaches to ten, since it is the sum of one, two, 
three, and four. For this reason it is called the grand tetrach- 
tys. 

The Pythagorean philosophy enumerated five elements, — 
earth, air, fire, water, and ether, — connecting therewith the fact 
that man has five organs of sense, — sight, hearing, smell, taste, 
and touch. The grand harmonical standard of Pythagoras 
was the musical octave. This consisted of the five planets, — 
Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, — and the sun, moon, 
and earth. He conceived that these were placed apart at dis- 
tances determined by a musical law, and that in their move- 
ments through space they produce sound, — the harmony of the 
spheres, — unnoticed by man, since he unceasingly hears it. He 
held that the sun is the center of the system, around which 
the planets and earth revolve in circular orbits, for the reason 
that the circle is the most perfect of forms. To Pythagoras is 
ascribed the honor of first solving the problem familiarly known 
as pons asinorum; viz., in a right-angled triangle the sum of the 
squares of the base and perpendicular is equal to the square of 
the hypotenuse. In consequence of this great achievement, 
he is said to have sacrificed to the gods a hundred oxen. 

Hence it is not infrequently called the hecatomb problem. 
The importance of this proposition cannot well be overesti- 
mated. 

It and the proposition that " equiangular triangles are simi- 
lar and have their homologous sides proportional " are almost 
sufficient, of themselves, for solving every problem of geome- 
try. 

Xenophanes, one of the greatest of Grecian philosophers, 
adopted in his philosophy the four elements, — earth, air, fire, 
and water, — but on observing fossil fish on the tops of moun- 
tains, inferred that the earth itself arose from the water. He 
regarded all revelation fictitious, and exposed the impiety of 
those who would confer upon the Great Supreme the form of 
man, saying, " If the ox or the lion could rise to a conception 
of the Diety, they might as well embody Him under their own 
shape." 

He says: "There is but one God. He has no resemblance 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 241 

to the bodily form of man, nor are His thoughts like ours." 
This utterance is in consonance with that made two thousand 
years afterward by Newton, in his Principia, to wit: " God is 
utterly void of all body and bodily figure, and can therefore 
neither be seen, nor heard, nor touched, nor ought to be wor- 
shiped under the representation of any corporeal thing. We 
have ideas of his attributes, but what the real substance of 
anything is we know not." 

Thus the initial of Greek philosophy is seen to be physical 
and geocentric; thence this philosophy recognizes intelligent 
designs in creation, and further on embraces the heliocentric 
theory of the mechanics of the planetary or solar system. 

Plato, renowned as the founder of the school at Hecademus 
(from which the term "academy" is derived), held that the 
primary principles are God, matter, ideas; that matter is co- 
eternal with God, but that, in the creation of all things, its 
properties and form are impressed upon it by Him. 

This academy limited its labors to the illustration and de- 
fense of the doctrines of its founder. " All in the world," says 
Plato, " is for the sake of the rest; and the places of the single 
parts are so ordered as to subserve to the preservation and 
I excellency of the whole; hence all + 
tion of a divine intellectual cause." 

He regarded ideas everlasting, and visible things fleeting 
shadows. 

He maintained that these ideas are not only conceptions of 
the mind, but actual perceptions or entities, having a real ex- 
istence; that they are the only real existences. Plato taught 
mathematics, but opposed the culture of physics. In this he 
imitated his early instructor, Socrates, who dissuaded his 
listeners from the cultivation of mathematics and physics 
affirming " that the former leads to vain conclusions and the 
latter to atheism." 

Aristotle founds inductive philosophy, and thus transfers 
us from ideality to ground more substantial. 

In the development of the faculties of the mind, he conducts 
us to its third stage. His is the beginning of positive philoso- 
phy. It searches not for absolute notions, the origin and des- 
tination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena, but 



242 IRVING M. SCOTT. 

applies itself to the study of their laws, recognizing that obser- 
vation and reasoning are the means of this knowledge. He 
precedes Bacon in the utterance and application of the aphor- 
ism, " There can be no real knowledge but that which is based 
on observed facts." The philosophical method of Aristotle is 
the inverse of that of Plato. Plato, beginning with universals, 
descended to particulars. Aristotle, beginning with experi- 
ments, observed facts, particulars, rose to universals and gen- 
eralizations by induction. In common phrase, Plato, hanging 
its top in air, would build the chimney downward; whereas 
Aristotle, founding it in solid earth, would build it upward. 
The philosophy of the former is borne on the airy wing of 
imagination; that of the latter, by the firm step of reason. 
Plato was an idealist; Aristotle, a materialist. 

Euclid of Alexandria contributes to science a treatise on 
elementary geometry which has ranked as a faultless model 
of exact reasoning and standard of exact demonstration for 
nearly twenty-two centuries. 

He was the author of several other works on mathematics, 
as conic sections, divisions, and porisms. He is honored 
with the title, " Father of Geometry." When asked by Ptol- 
emy I. "if geometry could not be mastered by an easier pro- 
cess," he is reported to have answered, "There is no royal road 
to geometry." 

Archimedes of Syracuse is esteemed the ablest of the ancient 
geometers. He also excelled in mechanics, theoretical and 
practical, as is attested by his brilliant discoveries in physics 
and his mechanical inventions. Thus he first determined the 
true theory of the lever, the method for the determination of 
specific gravity, invented the endless-screw screw-pump, burn- 
ing-mirrors, catapults, and other engines for throwing projec- 
tiles. "Eureka! Eureka!" and "Give me whereon to stand, 
and I will move the world," will doubtless be repeated as long 
as language is spoken. 

With respect to his mathematical achievements, he deter- 
mined approximately the ratio of the circumference of a 
cylinder to its diameter, the quadrature of the parabola, the 
solid contents of a sphere, and certain properties of the spiral, 
known as the Spiral of Archimedes. According to his direc- 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 243 

tion, a cylinder inclosing a sphere was engraved on his tomb- 
stone. No advance in theoretical mechanics during the eigh- 
teen centuries intervening between Archimedes and Leonardo 
da Vinci seems to have been made. 

Eratosthenes, contemporary with Archimedes, had the super- 
intendence of the Alexandrian Library. He determined the 
interval between the tropics to be eleven eighty-thirds of the 
circumference of the earth; found the circumference of the earth 
to be fifty times the distance between Alexandria and Syene; 
ascertained that the verticals of terrestrial gravity converge; 
wrote "a complete description of the earth, in three books, — 
physical, mathematical, and historical, — accompanied by a 
map of all parts then known"; considered the geological sub- 
mersion of land, the elevation of ancient sea-beds, the opening of 
the Dardanelles and of the Straits of Gibraltar. In his time, no 
one competent to form an opinion doubted the globular form of 
the earth, or the doctrine of its poles, axis, the equator, arctic 
and antarctic circles, equinoctial points, solstices, colures, and 
horizon. Eclipses no longer inspired the beholder with super- 
stitious awe. Their true causes had been assigned, so that the 
periods of their occurrence could be predicted. 

At this epoch, figuratively speaking, science was at its flood, 
not so much at Athens as at Alexandria. Here was the state 
institution, the celebrated Museum, with its library, said to 
contain seven hundred thousand volumes. Here concentrated 
the philosophers of the world. The institution numbered at 
one time fourteen thousand students. It embraced a garden 
of plants for the study of botany, a menagerie for the study of 
zoology, and " an anatomical school suitably provided with 
means for the dissection of the human body." Also, for the 
study of astronomy, it contained instruments, as the equinoc- 
tial and solstitial armil, stone quadrants, astrolabes, and 
diopters. On the floor a meridian line was drawn for the 
adjustment of the instruments. 

The mind dwells with profound delight upon the scene thus 
presented to view, but saddens to contemplate the gloom that 
settles upon it. It is a glorious sunset succeeded by a night of 
many centuries, during which the fountains of science wellnigh 
dry up, and its river ceases to flow perceptibly. The portals 



244 IRVING M. SCOTT. 

of nature, opened by the searchers after truth, are closed and 
guarded by the evil genii of war, patristicism, bigotry, super- 
stition, and sorcery. War, as a python, crushed in its deadly 
folds the body, while hydra-headed patristicism repressed 
thought, perverted and enslaved the mind, that noblest and 
grandest of all existences. 

Patristicism, founded on the principle that the Scriptures 
contain all knowledge permitted to man, became, on the de- 
cline of Greek philosophy, the self-constituted arbiter with 
respect to that knowledge and man. It set forth that " natural 
phenomena may be interpreted by the aid of texts, and that 
all philosophical doctrines must be molded to the pattern of 
orthodoxy." It asserted that God made the world out of 
nothing, since to admit the eternity of matter leads to Mani- 
chseism. It taught that the earth is a plane, and the sky a 
vault above it, in which the stars are fixed, and the sun, moon, 
and planets perform their motions, rising and setting; that 
these bodies are altogether of a subordinate nature, their use 
being to give light to man; that still higher, and beyond the 
vault of the sky, is heaven, the abode of God and the angelic 
hosts; that in six days the earth and all it contains was made; 
that it was overwhelmed by a universal deluge, which de- 
stroyed all living things save those preserved in the ark, the 
waters being subsequently dried up by the wind; that man is 
the moral center of the world; for him all things were created 
and are sustained; that so far from his ever having shown any 
tendency to improvement, he has fallen both in wisdom and 
worth, the first man before his sin having been perfect in body 
and soul; that through that sin death came into the world; 
not even any animal had died previously, but all had been 
immortal. It utterly rejected the idea of the government of 
the world by law, asserting the perpetual interference of an in- 
stant Providence on all occasions, not excepting the most 
trifling. It resorted to spiritual influences in the production 
of natural effects, assigning to angels the duty of moving the 
stars, carrying up water from the sea to form rain, and man- 
aging the eclipses. It affirmed that man had existed but a 
few centuries upon the earth, and that he could continue but a 
little longer, for that the world itself might every moment be 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 245 

expected to be burned up by fire. It deduced all the families 
of the earth from one primitive pair, and made them all mor- 
ally responsible for the sin committed by that pair. It rejected 
the doctrine that man can modify his own organism as abso- 
lutely irreligious, the physician being little better than the 
atheist; but it affirmed that cures may be effected by the 
intercession of saints, at the shrines of holy men, and by relics. 
It altogether repudiated the improvement of man's physical 
state; to increase his power or comfort was to attain what 
Providence denied; philosophical investigation was an unlaw- 
ful prying into things that God had designed to conceal. It 
declined the logic of the Greeks, substituting miracle proof for 
it, the demonstration of an assertion being supposed to be 
given by a surprising illustration of something else. It held 
the geometry of Euclid and Apollonius to be of no use; the 
geography of Ptolemy, a blunder; the great mechanical inven- 
tions of Archimedes, incomparably surpassed by the miracles 
worked at the shrines of a hundred saints. 

Thus Lactantius denounced philosophy as "empty and false" 
and speaking with respect to the heretical doctrine of the 
globular form of the earth, says: "Is it possible that men can 
be so absurd as to believe that the crops and the trees on the 
other side of the earth hang downward, and that men have 
their feet higher than their heads ? If you ask them how they 
defend these monstrosities, how things do not fall away from 
the earth on that side, they reply that the nature of things is 
such that heavy bodies tend toward the center like the spokes 
of a wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, and fire, tend 
from the center to the heavens on all sides. Now I am really 
at a loss what to say of those who, when they have once gone 
wrong, steadily persevere in their folly and defend one absurd 
opinion by another." 

St. Augustine asserts that " it is impossible there should be 
inhabitants on the other side of the earth, since no such race 
is recorded by Scripture among the descendants of Adam." 

To enforce its dogmas, patristicism relentlessly applied the 
rack and flame to hundreds of thousands of martyrs to free 
thought, and stimulated war beyond its natural bent for 
slaughter. But patristicism failed in its object of entirely 



246 IRVING M. SCOTT. 

eliminating science from the world; for, while it was thus 
engaged in enslaving the mind and in destroying the monu- 
ments of science, the Arabians, aided by the effort of Jew, 
Pagan, and Christian, were rescuing from destruction and 
translating the works of Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, Erat- 
osthenes, Ptolemy, and other valuable works of science and 
learning into their own language. They were doing more. 
They were investigating nature for themselves. In searching 
for the philosopher's stone, the alkahest, and the elixir of life, 
they opened up a crystal fountain of real science, — chemistry. 

Djafar discovers nitric acid and aqua regia, and shows how 
nitric acid may be made to dissolve even gold itself by adding 
a portion of sal ammoniac. Thus the great alchemic problem 
is solved, — "potable gold" is obtained. But experiment 
showed the extravagant anticipations entertained of its won- 
drous effects upon the human system to be illusory. 

Rhazes discovers sulphuric acid. He is also the first to 
obtain absolute alchohol. 

Bechil discovers phosphorus. 

Thus were laid the foundations of chemistry. Prior to the 
discoveries of Djafar and Rhazes, vinegar was the strongest 
acid known. 

The Arabs greatly improved arithmetic, introducing into it 
the Indian notation of the nine digits and zero. 

They also cultivate analysis, and confer upon it the name of 
algebra, which name it now bears. 

Alhazen discovers atmospheric refraction. 

The Arabs were the first to apply the pendulum for beating 
seconds. They introduce astronomy and build observatories 
in Europe. 

Avicenna, writing on the origin of mountains, says: " Moun- 
tains may be due to two different causes: either they are the 
effects of upheavals of the crust of the earth, such as might 
occur during a violent earthquake, or they are the effect of 
water, which, cutting for itself a new route, has denuded the 
valleys, the strata being of different kinds, — some soft, some 
hard. The winds and waters disintegrate the one, but leave 
the other intact. Most of the eminences of the earth have had 
this latter origin. It would require a long period of time for 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 247 

all such changes to be accomplished, during which the moun- 
tains themselves might be somewhat diminished in size. But 
that the water has been the main cause of these effects is 
proved by the existence of fossil remains of aquatic and other 
animals on many mountains." 

In medicine, the Arabic physician relied upon material 
agency, as the determined properties of plants and minerals, 
for the cure of disease, while throughout Christendom, for cen- 
turies, the practice of medicine was altogether supernatural, 
as saint relics, shrines, and miracle cures. 

During this long period the Arabs were the most highly 
cultured people in the world. Though we may denounce 
Mahomet as an impostor, it was a fortunate event for science 
when the battle at Gibraltar turned in favor of the Moslems; 
for thereby scientific schools were established in Spain, and 
their influence widely felt in Europe. They awakened a spirit 
of scientific investigation, which it was impossible for patristi- 
cism to control. They taught arithmetic, algebra, the geometry 
of Euclid, the mechanics of Archimedes, the philosophy of 
Aristotle, the geography and astronomy of Ptolemy, the geol- 
ogy of Avicenna, the chemistry of Djafar, Rhazes, and Bechil, 
the materia medica of Hippocrates, together with what science 
had since developed. 

The Arabs, without regard to religious belief, employed as 
instructors Mohammedan, Jew, and Christian, according to 
their qualifications; the Mohammedan maxim being, that "the 
real learning of a man is of more importance than any par- 
ticular religious opinions he may entertain." This broad and 
liberal sentiment has its origin in true science. 

Compare with it the utterance of patristicism. Thus Euse- 
bius says: " It is not through ignorance of the things admired 
by philosophers, but through contempt of such useless labor, 
that we think so little of these matters, turning our souls to 
the exercise of better things." 

We forbear to mention the objects of utility, the magnifi- 
cence and luxuries, with which the Spanish Arabs surrounded 
themselves. The palace of Abderahman, with its twelve hun- 
dred columns of Greek, Italian, Spanish, and African marble; 
its hall of audience incrusted with gold and pearls; its court- 



248 IRVING M. SCOTT. 

yards ornamented with splendid flowers and rare exotics; 
its walls adorned with arabesques, and paintings of agricul- 
tural scenes and views of paradise; its ceilings corniced with 
fretted gold, from which hung chandeliers bearing each eigh- 
teen hundred lamps; its furniture of citron-wood inlaid with 
mother-of-pearl, ivory, and silver, or relieved with gold and 
precious malachite; its boudoirs of verd-antique incrusted with 
lapis lazuli; its gardens replete with rarest fruits and flowers, 
— well may challenge the pen of the romancer. This and 
other palaces and gardens of like character with which Spain 
abounded during its occupancy by the Moslems, though held 
as an abomination by the so-called orthodoxy of patristicism, 
had, nevertheless, a salutary and civilizing effect upon Europe. 

But the immense libraries of choice works, — the catalogue 
of that of Al-hakem alone rilling forty volumes, — the common 
schools of learning attached to mosques, the academies and 
universities, accomplished far more. Though these no longer 
flourished at the time of the occurrence of the events of which 
we are now to speak, yet their teachings were not wholly 
crushed out. Columbus, De Gama, and Magellan, ignoring 
the patristic dogma with respect to the earth consisting of 
land with a flat surface surrounded by water, on which rested 
the sky, held that it was globular, as taught by the Arabic 
astronomers. 

Columbus, with the object of reaching the Indies (now des- 
ignated the East Indies), sailed with three small ships from 
Palos, August 3, 1492, and sailing westerly discovered, Octo- 
ber 12th, San Salvador, an island of the West Indies, whence 
he returned to Spain, March 15, 1493. 

Vasco de Gama, with the object of reaching the Indies by 
taking, in the main, an easterly course, sailed with three ships 
from Lisbon, and doubling the Cape of Good Hope, reached 
Calicut, on the coast of Malabar, May 19, 1498, whence he re- 
turned to the port of departure. 

Magellan, with the object of circumnavigating the globe, 
sailed with five ships from Seville, August 10, 1519, passed 
through the Straits of Magellan into the Pacific Ocean, Novem- 
ber 28, 1520, and reached Zebu, one of the Philippine Islands, 
where he died. His lieutenant, Sebastian del Cano, taking 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 249 

command of the expedition, reached Tidore, the chief port of 
the Spice Islands, November 8, 1521. Again setting sail, he 
doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and reached the port of San 
Lucar, near Seville, September 7, 1522. This was the first 
complete voyage around the globe. It was a grand triumph 
for experimental science, and an overwhelming defeat to 
patristicism. The voyages of Columbus and De Gama were 
respectively sufficient to convince reason of the globular form 
of the earth; for according to the course run, so was seen to 
be the rising and setting of the stars. If the course was south- 
ward, southern stars rose and northern set; if northward, 
northern stars rose and southern set; and with respect to the 
easterly and westerly courses, the time of the rising and setting 
of the stars varied with the longitude. These phenomena 
could not possibly obtain were the earth a fiat surface. For 
were it flat or plane, any particular star would be seen from 
each and every point of observation in that flat or plane at the 
same time. The voyage of Magellan was a general demonstra- 
tion of the truth of the doctrine of the globular form of the 
earth. It proved the earth round as it went, and it went all 
the way round. 

It dispersed, annihilated, the evil genii that superstition had 
placed on the chaotic verge of the ocean for seizing and dragging 
down into the abyss of darkness all intruders. This demonstra- 
tion, though grander than anything the world had ever before 
witnessed, was such that all classes, whether learned or un- 
learned, could understand it. It addressed itself not only to 
reason, but also to perception. Although it placed patristicism 
hors de combat, and unmasked it with respect to its arrogation 
of divine knowledge, " still it would not down," — still held 
and enforced its geocentric doctrine, — held that the earth is 
the grand center of creation, and that the sun, moon, stars, 
and skies revolve around it. The controverting of this dogma, 
by demonstrating the true structure of the solar system, and 
the laws by which that system is governed, called forth an 
intellectual effort still broader and deeper and loftier in its 
scope than that pertaining to the true form of the earth. 

At the beginning of this effort, Copernicus, a Prussian as- 
tronomer, revived the proposition of Pythagoras, that the earth 



250 IRVING M. SCOTT. 

and the other planets of the solar system revolve about the 
sun in circular orbits. He also assumed that the earth not 
only had an annual and diurnal motion, but a motion of dec- 
lination of its axis, also. The error with respect to its motion 
of declination was soon rectified. 

His work entitled De Revolutionibus was published in 1543. 

Bruno adopts the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, and is 
largely instrumental in its introduction into England. For 
teaching the rotation of the earth, he had to flee to Switzerland, 
thence to England, France, and Germany, in succession, and 
venturing in his extremity to return to Italy, he was arrested, 
tried for heresy, condemned by the Inquisition to be punished 
" as mercifully as possible, and without the shedding of his blood." 
In accordance with the monstrous meaning of these words, 
Bruno was burnt alive in Rome, February 16, 1600. 

Galileo, by means of the telescope which he had invented, 
contributed largely toward confirming the truth of the Coper- 
nican theory. Thus his telescopic observations showed, that 
the moon has mountains and valleys, — mountains with lava- 
clad sides, volcanic cones and craters, and ejected blocks, 
proving a succession of events corresponding to those of the 
earth; that Jupiter has four satellites or moons; that Venus 
has phases like those of the earth's moon; that there are in- 
numerable fixed stars invisible to the naked eye, and therefore 
could not have been created only to illuminate the earth and 
night, as patristicism asserted to have been the divine purpose 
in creating the sun, moon, and all the stars. In 1632, Galileo 
published a work entitled The System of the World, whose 
object was to establish the truth of the Copernican doctrine. 
Its conclusions were unanswerable, since they were based upon 
actual experiments. It furnished a store of facts for the use of 
other philosophers. We forbear to mention that the only 
argument adduced to controvert these facts were ipse dixit and 
persecution. 

Kepler, availing himself of the experimental data furnished 
by Galileo, and of other facts at his command, sought to de- 
termine the laws obtaining in the Copernican system, — the 
laws presiding over the distances, times, and velocities of the 
planets. 






THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 251 

In speaking of his effort, he says: "I considered and reflected 
till I was almost mad." At length, after submitting guess 
after guess and hypothesis after hypothesis to computation, he 
deduced the following, known as " Kepler's Laws ": — 

1. The orbit of each planet is an ellipse, with the sun in one 
of its foci. 

2. The radius vector of each planet describes equal areas in 
equal times. 

3. The squares of the periods of the planets are proportional 
to the cubes of their mean distances from the sun. 

The discovery of these laws relieved the system of eccentrics 
and epicycles, and, so far as tested, fulfilled all the require- 
ments. But as yet their truth was solved but in a partial 
manner. 

Before considering the general solution of these laws, let 
reference be made to the state of philosophy, especially that of 
mechanics, so indispensable to its attainment. 

Leonardo da Vinci, beginning where Archimedes left off, had 
made many valuable contributions to natural philosophy. 
Among other things, he gave a clear exposition of the theory 
of oblique forces applied to the lever; the principle of virtual 
velocities, that of the fall of bodies, and the times of descent 
along inclined planes and circular arcs. 

Stevinus in .1586 published a work on the principles of 
equilibrium, in which he established the property of the in- 
clined plane and solved in a general manner the cases of forces 
acting obliquely. 

Galileo in 1592 published a work on mechanics, in which he 
established the three laws of motion, viz.: — 

1. Every body perseveres in its state of rest or of uniform 
motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that 
state by forces impressed thereon. 

2. The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the 
motive power impressed, and is made in the direction of the 
right line in which that force is impressed. 

3. To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction, 
or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always 
equal and directed in contrary parts. 

Newton, deeply learned in mathematics, the theory of me- 



252 IRVING M. SCOTT. 

chanics, and general philosophy, and endowed with a mind of 
transcendent scope and strength of grasp, essayed the general 
solution of this grave problem of the solar system. He demon- 
strated or received as postulates or axioms the three laws of 
motion as announced by Galileo; he rigidly demonstrated the 
truth of Kepler's Laws, and discovered the law of gravitation, 
— attraction. 

Applying these truths, with a reasoning clear and exact at 
every step he effects the grand solution, — establishes the 
truth of the modified theory of the Copernican system. 

He did more. He showed as corollaries that the laws ob- 
taining in the Copernican or solar system prevail, of necessity, 
throughout the universe, and that the universe is governed, of 
necessity, not by volition, but by laws which could not and 
cannot be otherwise. 

Pope aptly says: — 

"Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night ; 
God said, 'Let Newton be,' and all was light." 

But his fame rests not alone on his contributions to astron- 
omy. 

Mathematics as an exact science seems to be benefited not 
less than astronomy by his discoveries. His discovery of the 
principle of fluxions has been prolific of grand and far-reaching 
results. With respect to this branch of science, however, 
Newton has a peer in Leibnitz, who discovered the principles 
of the calculus, virtually the same as those of fluxions, about 
the same time, the chief difference consisting in the symbols 
employed. 

Of fluxions, or calculus, it may well be said that " it is one 
of the greatest, most subtile, and sublime discoveries of this, or 
perhaps of any, age; that it opens a new world to us, and ex- 
tends our knowledge, as it were, to infinity; that it carries us 
beyond the bounds which seem to have been prescribed to the 
human mind, — at least, infinitely beyond those to which 
ancient geometry was confined." 

The differential and integral calculus of Leibnitz is supple- 
mented by the calculus of variations originating with Lagrange. 
A knowledge of the calculus is absolutely necessary to thorough 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 253 

analytical research in the higher branches of physical science. 
Illustrative of its vast scope and inestimable value, let refer- 
ence be made to the Celestial Mechanics of Laplace and to its 
worthy companion, The Analytical Mechanics of Benjamin 
Peirce; also, among the invaluable treatises on applied me- 
chanics, to those of Weisbach and Rankine. 

With respect to the development of the science of chemistry, 
Priestley and Lavoisier seem to have begun where Djafar and 
Rhazes left off nearly a thousand years before. Thus Priestley 
in 1774 discovered oxygen, and soon after, nitrous, carbonic, 
and sulphurous oxide; and in 1783 Lavoisier discovered the 
composition of water, or its resolution into its elements, oxygen 
and hydrogen. Thence on, discovery has succeeded discovery, 
till sixty-four different substances are classed as elements, and 
the combining equivalent and atomic weight of each deter- 
mined, as also the laws of "the composition of different forms 
of nature and the changes which they are capable of inducing 
in each other." Chemistry determines that atoms are governed 
by law, and "accepts without hesitation the doctrine of the 
imperishability of substance." The chemist recognizes no act 
of volition in inorganic matter, no spirits of " the black art " 
to burst tightly closed vessels when tormented in the fire; to 
condense intangible vapors into solids; to call suddenly into 
existence gaudy precipitates from colorless liquids, and to dis- 
engage flames without any adequate cause: but recognizes that 
the substance that was, is, and will be, and that like causes 
under similar circumstances will produce like effects. Chem- 
istry may be less advanced than astronomy in its development. 
It has, however, reached an eminent degree of perfection. 
The truths it elicits from nature are stranger than fiction, 
and its rendition of her text, sublimely grand and beautiful. 
Its scope of usefulness is confined to no industry, and its con- 
tributions to the welfare and happiness of mankind are unlim- 
ited. 

Geology, since the time of Avicenna, a thousand years ago, 
has developed into a noble and highly important science, em- 
bracing in its scope a knowledge of the changes that have 
occurred in the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. In 
a certain sense, therefore, it has become a cover-all of the 



254 IRVING M. SCOTT. 

sciences. It acquaints us with the structure of the earth from 
the time the erosion of its surface began. It reads in the 
earth's strata the unerring record of their formation. It shows 
that mountains in some cases have emerged from the sea, and 
in others, have sunk beneath its waves. 

From the lessons learned of a particular formation embra- 
cing valuable treasures in one locality, it is enabled to direct 
the explorer to similar treasures on the discovery of a like 
formation in a different locality. It contributes largely to our 
knowledge of events that have occurred on the earth since the 
advent of man. As an instance, it shows by the excavating of 
pottery and other works of man in the valley of the Nile, that 
Egypt enjoyed a civilization of no inconsiderable advancement 
eight thousand years before the Great Pyramid was built, and 
eleven thousand years before Herodotus, the "Father of His- 
tory," was born. 

The new philosophy, or that of the correlation and conser- 
vation of forces, refers its origin to the experiment of Count 
Rumford (Benjamin Thompson, an American by birth) in 
1798, by which he discovered that heat is a mode of motion. 

In 1849, Joule fixed the thermal unit, or mechanical equiva- 
lent of heat, at 772 "foot pounds," — that is, determined that 
the heat expended in heating one pound of water 1° F. is 
equivalent to the energy necessary to raise vertically 772 
pounds one foot high. 

Other experiments show that the heat necessary to evapo- 
rate one pound of water into dry steam from and at 212° F. is 
966 thermal units; and further, that the combustion of one 
pound of carbon making carbonic acid will evaporate fifteen 
pounds of water into dry steam from and at 212° F. 

Experiment further determines that heat, motion, electricity, 
galvanism, light, are convertible terms, or forms of each other. 
Thus the heat generated by the combustion of carbon or other 
substance may be developed as mechanical power, electricity, 
light, or galvanism. 

So, too, may the mechanical power of a stream of water be 
developed as heat, or transmitted as electricity to a point miles 
away, and thence developed in the form of mechanical power, 
light, or other correlative form. Heat seems a form of energy, 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE. 255 

or in other words, heat is energy susceptible to change of form, 
but not subject to destruction. It may exist as potential or 
dynamic energy. 

"Throughout the universe, the sum of these two energies is 
constant." 

This new philosophy acquaints us with the methods of 
nature in effecting her works, — brings us, as it were, into 
intimate companionship with her, so that without distrust she 
readily discloses those things which hitherto philosophy held 
to be occult. 

It enables us to measure and accurately determine the value 
of heat, light, motion, and electricity in the known terms of 
foot pounds. 

Its discoveries and inventions mark an epoch in the pro- 
gress of science unsurpassed in importance by that distin- 
guished by the immortal discoveries and inventions of Galileo, 
Kepler, and Newton. 

In this philosophy is reached the highest development of 
science yet attained, — eminently, a unity of the sciences. 
Other developments may, and not improbably will, be attained, 
of a still higher order. Indeed, there seems ample reason for 
anticipating that the Academy of Sciences of San Francisco 
will still further distinguish itself by its efforts in augmenting 
the flow of this incomparably grand and beautiful stream. 



ALBEET G. BUKNETT. 

Judge Burnett, of Santa Eosa, California, is a noted orator of the 
classical type. The following extract is a good example of his style. 

YOUNG MEN IN POLITICS. 

I beg your indulgence while I address you briefly on the 
inspiring theme of "Young Men in Politics." The subject is 
peculiarly appropriate upon an occasion like this, when so 
many of the intelligent, progressive, and representative young 
men of the state have assembled for the purpose of considering 
the political conditions of the country, and with a view of 
contemplating and devising methods whereby the highest in- 
terests of the commonwealth may be promoted. That every 
man who is solicitous for good government should take an 
active interest in politics and political questions, surely, 
scarcely admits of argument, even if it needs affirmation. 
And yet there are many bright and successful young as well 
as middle-aged men in business life and in the professions, 
and men of independent wealth and of leisure, who are not 
public-spirited enough to make their influence felt in the de- 
termination of party policies or in the direction of public 
affairs. The result is, as we all know, that frequently the 
civil rights and interests of the people are committed to the 
tender mercies of a predatory class, whose highest aim, it may 
be modestly said, is not for the public good. The " upright" 
citizens, also, it must be admitted, although they are not 
strenuous enough to assert themselves, or to make any effort 
to do so, in the selection of their party nominees or in the ad- 
ministration of the law, are often most violent in their denun- 
ciation of political corruption and in their lamentations over 
the general decadence of the times. If by any feeble words of 
mine I could induce our people to take a deeper and more de- 
termined and persistent interest in politics, I should feel that 

256 



YOUNG MEN IN POLITICS. 257 

I had accomplished something worthy of greater efforts than 
any power of mine can perform. I speak especially to young 
men, because their habits of thought and of life are more sus- 
ceptible to influence, and because the future holds more in store 
for them, and a greater obligation rests upon them in view of 
their capabilities and opportunities. What I shall submit for 
your consideration is not said in a spirit of criticism or fault- 
finding, but rather of commendation and friendly suggestion. 
It is easy to find fault with any particular organization or its 
management; it is much more difficult to make it what it 
ought to be, or to manage it ourselves. This is true, I appre- 
hend, of nearly all human affairs. It has been said "that it 
is easier to criticise the greatest thing done superbly, than to 
do the smallest thing indifferently." But I want to say, young 
men, that you should be interested in politics, not simply 
to-day, when you meet as the representatives of a great party 
that has struck such mighty blows for freedom and civilization, 
and when the imagination is aroused, the intellect is animated, 

' our enthusiasm awakened, and pride exalted, at the splendid 
recital of the past by our famous orators; but you should be 
interested and manifest that interest to-morrow, when you are 
no longer under the magic spell of the eloquence of these dis- 
tinguished gentlemen, and you should continue to be a factor 
in the government of the country so long as you are physically 
and mentally able to participate in public affairs. It is cause 
for congratulation that so many young men of vigor and 
intelligence have given themselves in the past to the people's 
service. In public station and in private life their energies 
have been devoted to the promotion of the welfare of the state. 

1 May the young men "just fresh from the Creator's hands, 
and with the unspent energies of the coming eternity wrapped 
in their bosoms, contemplate the mighty gifts with which they 
have been endowed," and resolve that they will devote them 

! as far as possible to the welfare of the state and of the nation, 
and may they remember, as Eobert C. Winthrop said, "that 
self-government politically can only be successful if it be ac- 
companied by self-government personally; that there must be 

, government somewhere; and that if the people are indeed to 
be sovereigns, they must exercise their sovereignty over them- 

] 



258 ALBERT G. BURNETT. 

selves individually as well as over themselves in the aggregate, 
regulating their own lives, resisting their own temptations, 
subduing their own passions, and voluntarily imposing upon 
themselves some measure of that restraint and discipline which 
under other systems is supplied from the armories of arbitrary 
power; the discipline of virtue in the place of the discipline of 
slavery." 



D. M. DELMAS. 

D. M. Delmas is one of the noted orators of the West. The address 
on Washington, printed here, is a good example of his style. 

WASHINGTON.* 

[Delivered in response to the toast, "The Character of Washington, 
and its Influence upon the Nation," at a banquet of the Sons of the 
American Revolution, in San Francisco, February 22, 1899.] 

Mr. President, — If a student of the firmament, whose vigils 
are consecrated "to trace the stars and search the heavens for 
power," were asked to describe in an after-dinner speech the 
nature and composition of the sun, and to depict its influ- 
ence upon the universe, he would stand appalled at the im- 
mensity of his task and confounded in the attempt to accom- 
plish it. No less embarrassment do I feel when, in obedience 
to your courteous summons, I rise on this occasion to respond 
to the sentiment which you have just proposed, "The Charac- 
ter of Washington, and its Influence upon the Nation." 

Where, indeed, could a theme be found, more vast in its 
proportions or more diversified in its attributes, compressed 
within such narrow bounds? A century has rolled by since 
Washington was laid to rest beneath the sod of Mount Vernon. 
And yet wherever upon the face of the globe the emblem 
under which he fought the great fight of independence is un- 
furled, — in every city, town, village, and hamlet within the 
confines of the republic ; upon every craft flying the Stars 
and Stripes which floats upon the waters, from the stately and 
awe-inspiring battle-ship horrent with engines of destruction, 
to the humblest fishing-smack that plows its peaceful way un- 
der the shadow of the lee shore, — nay, in remote and strange 
lands, whether in the frozen regions of the poles or under the 

* Reprinted from Speeches and Addresses of D. M. Delmas, published by A. M. 
Robertson, San Francisco. 

259 



260 D- M. DELMAS. 

burning sun of the tropics, — wherever a heart is found to beat 
in an American breast, — there, on this day, with public pomp 
or private ceremonial, the birth of Washington is commemo- 
rated for now the one-hundredth time since a nation, still clad 
in mourning for his death, decreed that the day of his birth 
should be so remembered and so hallowed. How, then, shall 
I attempt adequately to conceive or describe within this brief 
limit the character, the achievements, and the influence of that 
man whose name is thus enshrined in the hearts of his coun- 
trymen, and whose spirit holds such a spell over the minds of 
successive generations? How measure the worth of that life, 
whose fame, defying not only the power of time, but revers- 
ing the laws of terrestrial things, grows brighter with each 
revolving year, and keeps pace with the march of civilization 
wherever its standard is advanced over the habitable globe? 

But, Mr. President, if it be for these reasons impossible to 
trace the influence of the character of Washington upon the 
destinies of this country during the century that has just 
elapsed since his death, — a century in which the nation has 
gone through such varied vicissitudes, — we may, perhaps, be 
tempted to cast a glance upon events which immediately sur- 
round us, upon those changes in the history of our country 
which have been and are still taking place under our very 
eyes with such amazing rapidity and completeness of trans- 
formation, that they appear like the phantasms of a dream or 
the shifting panorama of the scenic stage. What influence 
do the character, the example, the precepts of Washington ex- 
ert to-day upon the destiny of the nation in the unprecedented 
and changed conditions which surround it? In the solution 
of the new problems which the arbitrament of a brief but 
decisive war thrusts upon us, what aid is sought from the re- 
corded utterances of that tongue which was hushed in death a 
hundred years ago? In the heavings of the ship of state, 
tossed upon the waves of an unknown and strange sea, what 
guidance does the helmsman invoke from the chart traced by 
the hand of Washington before the century was born to indi- 
cate the course where national safety and national honor lay? 

Mr. President, our national life during the past ten months 
has been crowded with events which, a century ago, would have 



WASHINGTON. 261 

filled a decade in the existence of even the most advanced na- 
tion. Developments have been so rapid, episodes have pressed 
npon one another so closely, vicissitudes have presented fea- 
tures so startling and unlooked for, that the wisdom of the 
representatives of the people has been tasked in an almost 
superhuman degree to meet the varying emergencies as became 
the dignity and the true interests of a great nation. From 
that ill-starred hour on the night of the 15th of February, 
1898, when the shattered Maine sank in the harbor of Havana, 
dragging down in the vortex and burying beneath the waves 
the decrepit and expiring form of one of the oldest monarchies 
of Europe, to the moment, which is but of yesterday, when the 
Senate ratified the treaty by which Spain relaxed her feeble 
grasp upon the last outlying fragments of the vast empire of 
Charles V., and we found ourselves, of a sudden, burthened with 
the guardianship of ten or twelve millions of men, strangers to 
our race, our language, our customs, and our civilization, 
whose was the name invoked in our council-halls, whose the 
utterances quoted, whose the example cited, whose the wis- 
dom and statesmanship appealed to? The student of politi- 
cal history, turning to the pages which record the delibera- 
tions of the lawmakers of the nation, will answer, The name, 
the example, the precepts, the wisdom, and the statesman- 
ship of Washington. When, in the beginning of the strug- 
gle, our chief magistrate announced to the world that the 
war was undertaken solely to vindicate the outraged dignity 
of the nation, and proclaimed that the idea of conquest and 
aggrandizement was to be repudiated and reprobated as a 
criminal aggression not to be thought of, whose was the policy 
thus announced? The policy inculcated by Washington in 
that immortal address in which he exhorted his countrymen 
to maintain their attitude of isolation and independence of 
foreign peoples. When the news of successive victories — 
glorious for our arms, disastrous for our enemy's — flashed 
before our eyes; when we saw our foe — its armies routed, cap- 
tured, or disbanded, its fleets annihilated — lying prostrate and 
helpless at our feet; when opportunity kindled the hunger for 
foreign acquisitions, and schemes of colonial domains, of pro- 
tectorates, of imperial policies, were at first secretly conceived, 



262 D. M. DELMAS. 

then voiced in whispers, and at length openly and boldly pro- 
claimed, — by what words did the wise and thoughtful seek to 
recall our wanderings, and warn us not to abandon the advan- 
tages of our singularly fortunate position, nor to entangle our 
peace with European ambitions or rivalries? The recorded 
history of the hour will answer, By the words of Washington. 
And now, when, in the delirious joy of our triumph, forgetful 
of the concerns clamoring for attention at home, we talk in 
swelling phrase about our duty to humanity abroad; when we 
imagine ourselves the champions of Providence, fraught with 
the mission of emancipating and regenerating mankind; when 
we allow our imagination to be dazzled and our vanity to be 
flattered by invitation to an alliance with a monarchy, — kin- 
dred, it is true, but, for all that, none the less proverbially ego- 
istic in its policy, — what voice rings clear through the mists of 
a century to warn us that "it is folly in one nation to look for 
disinterested favors from another; that it is an illusion which 
experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard"? 
What voice, I ask, but the voice of Washington? 

Are we deaf to these utterances? Do we hear them un- 
moved? Has the power which has been our guide for a hun- 
dred years now ceased to have force? Have those precepts 
under which our national greatness has developed, our com- 
merce flourished, and the happiness of the people been secured, 
lost their efficacy? Is the influence of the example and the 
teachings of Washington henceforth to be no more? Believe 
it not, sir; believe it not. The day will come — it never yet 
has failed to come to the people of these United States — when 
the temporary illusions of the hour shall be dispelled like 
the mists of the morning, when reason shall resume her sway, 
when this un-American and unrepublican talk of imperialism, 
this nascent proneness to neglect our affairs at home in a fan- 
tastic attempt to usurp the functions of the Omnipotent in the 
regulation of the world, shall be looked upon as the fitful and 
momentary aberrations of a fevered mind. The day will come 
when we shall realize that our true interests are here, and con- 
cern our own people; that the principles by which we con- 
quered and still maintain our independence demand that we 
allow other nations to achieve or retain theirs; and that if 



WASHINGTON. 263 

expansion be our wish, we should remember that we still have 
within our own borders, upon soil indisputably ours, room 
enough for a ten times greater number of freemen — children 
of the temperate zone — than the fevered swamps of the Antil- 
les or the jungles of the Malayan Archipelago could support. 
The day will come when, with the accustomed reverence of old, 
we will return to the wisdom and statesmanship of Washing- 
ton, and in the future, as in the past, will continue to rear the 
edifice of our national greatness upon the broad and safe foun- 
dations which he has laid. 

In that day, and until the waters of the ocean shall have 
engulfed the continent, and this loved land of ours shall be no 
more, author of our independence, founder of our government, 
primordial magistrate of the republic, father, and sage, whose 
ashes are inurned within the sepulcher of Mount Vernon, but 
whose spirit can never die, be with us, yet and evermore. 



HON. M. T. DOOLING. 

Hon. M. T. Dooling, judge of the superior court of San Benito 
County, California, is one of the brilliant speakers of the West. He 
is a native son of California. 

"OUR ABSENT BROTHERS." 

[Delivered at the banquet of the Native Sons of the Golden West, 
during the Grand Parlor session at Santa Cruz, April, 1902.] 

Mr. Toast-master, — The sentiment embraced in the toast, 
"Our Absent Brothers," is one which touches deeply every 
member of our order, wherever he may be; for I assume that 
it refers to those who, but a few short weeks, or months, or 
years ago, were intimately associated with ourselves, who stood 
shoulder to shoulder with us in days gone by, but whose 
places are now vacant, while they themselves await our com- 
ing in the tomb, to which, with loving hands and saddened 
hearts, we tenderly consigned them. 

And indeed, my friends, it is eminently fitting, it is a kindly 
and a proper thought, thus to set apart a few moments in the 
midst of our entertainment to pay our tribute of respect to 
those of our number whom death has already claimed. 
Though they have gone from earth, and forever, their relations 
with us have not ceased with their lives. They leave behind 
them their memory and their example; their influence still 
abides with us, and their names and characters still dwell in 
our minds and hearts. We still enjoy the fruits of their coun- 
sel, and live and commune with them again in tender memo- 
ries of the happy past. 

In very truth, we are surrounded by the works of the dead. 
Our order has grown up under their guidance, our minds have 
been formed by their intercourse and association, and we are 
connected with them by innumerable bonds which we have no 
wish to break. Those whom we have loved in life are still the 

264 



"OUR ABSENT BROTHERS." 265 

objects of our deepest and holiest affections; their power over 
us remains unbroken; they are with us in our solitary walks; 
their voices speak to our hearts in the silence of midnight; and 
their image is impressed upon our dearest recollections, upon 
our fondest and most sacred hopes. They form an essential 
part of our existence, for, overleaping the confines of the grave, 
we know that our affections and our hopes are not buried in 
the dust to which we commit the poor remains of our common 
mortality. 

It is not with terror, but with tenderness, that death should 
touch the human heart, — touch it with a gracious sympathy, 
with a tender and refining sorrow. It consecrates the bonds of 
affection, and renders the departed dearer; it gives new power 
and sanctity to their example, covers every mortal defect with 
the mantle of charity, and invests their virtues with that ra- 
diant beauty which absence alone bestows. 

What matters it to us if some whose memory we consecrate 
to-night attracted not the world's attention, nor commanded 
its applause? In their own sphere, and as they saw it, they 
did the duty that lay nearest to their hand. The lives of good 
men, though often far-reaching in effect, pass, for the most 
part, unnoticed by the busy throng. Like the great forces of 
nature, they operate silently, and ordinarily we take no more 
conscious note of their power and efficacy than we do of the 
continued existence and operation of those unerring and irre- 
sistible laws which color the blades of grass at our feet, or 
propel and direct through the immensity of space the vast 
planetary systems, which swing to-day through their accus- 
tomed course, as they have swung for ages, with unswerving 
regularity. 

And yet he who boasts not of powerful ancestry, nor founds 
his hopes upon titles and estates, who spreads not his sails to 
the breeze of fortune, nor courts the favors of popular ap- 
plause, but rather, pursuing some humbler path, endeavors by 
cheerful word and generous deed to brighten the lives of those 
he loves, to cheer the friends with whom he associates, and 
to lighten the cares of those around him, although he live in 
some lone hamlet, secluded alike from the gaze and unknown 
to the bustle of the greater world, may well be entitled to a 



266 HON. M. T. DOOLING. 

higher seat than was ever won, to a crown more brilliant than 
was ever worn, by the mightiest of the line of the Caesars. 

So we pay tribute to our friends to-night, to their simple 
virtues, to their upright lives, — to the husband who let no 
shadow of care cross the threshold, and brought no gloom to 
his little home, save only that occasioned by his own untimely 
departure; to the father whose only thought was for the de- 
pendent ones who were looking to him, the wife and children 
whom he loved, and around whom was centered his every 
hope in life; to the son who gave to the father and mother, 
now grown old, the watchful solicitude and tender care which 
they accorded to him during the long years of his dependence 
upon them; to the brother and friend whose gentle charity 
looked kindly on our faults, and whose loyal devotion knew 
no weariness if only it could be employed in serving those he 
loved. For them, though dead, we bate no particle of our 
heart and hope. It is true that we may grieve for the early 
passing of the young lives and brilliant intellects, for blighted 
hopes and shattered aspirations, for brave ideals unattained, 
and glorious promises that failed of their fulfillment. We 
may mourn for careers cut short and dreams unrealized, for 
broken plans and wrecked ambitions, and for all the loves, 
and joys, and happiness gone down, untimely, into the valley 
of the shadow: but, as Christian men, we are cheered by the 
thought that by the same solemn tributes which we pay the 
departed the heart utters at once its undying regret for the 
life that is ended and its immortal prophecy of the life begun. 
Recognizing, therefore, that the soul is not of this earth, we 
hear the voice of hope issuing from the grave; we see immor- 
tality leading the way before death. So we recall the absent 
ones to-night, both those who walked with the great ones of 
the earth, and those who trod the pathway of the lowly. They 
have reached that unknown land to which we are all hasten- 
ing. May we not hope that they have found there the rest 
that knows no end, the peace that passeth all understanding? 
May we not hope that when the beloved eyes, whose light we 
knew so well, closed for the last time in darkness here, they 
opened once more, upon the other side, to the light of the eter- 
nal day? 



ON THE FIRING-LINE." 267 



"ON THE FIRING-LINE." 

[Delivered at the banquet of the Native Sons of the Golden West, 
during the session of the Grand Parlor at Salinas, April, 1899.] 

Mr. President, — Since this Grand Parlor adjourned a year 
ago, the people of this great nation have seen their country 
gathering its forces for a stubborn war to be fought on soil 
other than its own. They have read the proclamation of the 
President calling for volunteers, and they have seen those vol- 
unteers assembling, leaving their desks, their offices, and their 
farms, laying aside in a moment all the enjoyments, comforts, 
and privileges of peace, to take upon themselves the stern 
duties that fall to the lot of the soldier in time of war, and for 
which many of them were but illy fitted by habit, b}^ environ- 
ment, or by training. The} 7 have seen these civilian soldiers 
marching proudly away beneath the fluttering flags, stepping 
gaily forth to the inspiring music of martial bands, cheered 
by the patriotic throngs that lined the streets of our great 
cities, assembling from the quiet towns and still more quiet 
country lanes, moving on to the fields of battle, in prompt re- 
sponse to their country's call. All this they have seen, and 
the picture was indeed an inspiring one. But what they have 
not seen, and what they never can see, is the end of that jour- 
ney so gloriously begun: the stubborn contests on gory fields; 
the weary marches on foreign soil; the constant watchfulness 
in storm and tempest, and under the serene and quiet stars; 
the resistless whirlwind of the charge; the hopeless gallantry 
of the defense; the wounded falling between contending hosts; 
the lonely agony of expiring souls; and the struggle of the 
helpless, dying of thirst among the jungles of the tropics. 
They have not seen those who then marched so proudly, toil- 
ing in the hasty trenches through the weary watches of the 
j night, heaving up the sods on which they are to lie, torn and 
disfigured, ere the morrow's sun has set. They have not seen 
the sheaves of the dead whose hands still grimly clutch the 



268 HON. M. T. DOOLING. 

sword, and whose wan faces and steadfast eyes are glaring up- 
wards to the starry sky. They have not seen the brave head, 
proudly lifted an hour ago, now prone in the dust, and the war- 
rior's steed, quivering and subdued, neighing for the rider who 
shall not mount on him again. These things they have not 
seen, and yet these are the things which our boys at the front 
are undergoing; these are the realities as distinguished from the 
romance of war; for the object of war is the systematic slaugh- 
ter of men. Wounds, and sickness, and misery, and suffering 
are the attendants of a military campaign, and that path is 
rugged and steep, and weary to the feet, which finds its end 
upon the brink of a soldier's grave. And he who has trodden 
that path, who has accomplished the whole of that journey! 
What to him now are the bugle's mellow notes? What the 
roll of the drum? For him the last tattoo has sounded, and 
naught but the glory which he won remains, bought at such 
price of suffering in life, of loneliness and misery in death. 
And while he sleeps on in his nameless grave under the Orien- 
tal stars, the electric wires and the morning papers convey 
throughout the country the tidings of his death. Thousands 
read it with indifference. What to them is one soldier more 
or less, when grim war calls out for his victims? But some- 
where, in some home, on some heart, those tidings fall like a 
knell. For every soldier buried on the field, there is a broken 
heart at home. Is it in the busy street of the crowded city? 
is it in the rural hamlet? or is it in the farm-house under the 
shade of the trees by the quiet country road? God knows; 
but somewhere within our borders there is a ruined life; some- 
where a broken heart. For, though the multitude heed it not, 
every bullet that takes a life leaves desolate some home, leaves 
broken some one's heart. I am not oblivious to the glorious 
side of war, but I speak of that which first appeals to me, — 
the infinite pity of it all. Yet there is another phase which is 
all too frequently overlooked, and which touches directly our 
more humane instincts, which appeals at once to our gentler 
nature. For centuries the fate of the soldier wounded on the 
field or stricken by pestilence was to be left where he fell, with 
no one to care for him, and naught to do but to await the mo- 
ment when pain, and thirst, and exhaustion should bring to 



"ON THE FIRING-LINE." 269 

him the relief from suffering which his government was too 
busy to afford. Out of this condition of affairs, modern civil- 
ization has evolved the Red Cross Society, its members pro- 
tected by treaty among all nations, whose duty it is to follow 
in the wake of contending armies, and to undo, in so far 
as may be possible, the devastating work of war. Many of 
our boys are enlisted under that banner; and while their 
labors are little heard of, passing, for the most part, unheeded 
among the more conspicuous feats of the belligerents, we 
should not forget that while some of our members are occu- 
pied in the work of destroying, others are engaged in the task 
of building up, and are constantly found amid the horrors of 
war, bending over the couch of the afflicted, smoothing with 
gentle hand the pillow of wasting disease, lifting the helpless 
head of the languid and suffering, allaying the burning thirst 
of desiccating fever, banishing the grim specters which affright 
the distempered imagination, diffusing a fragrant coolness 
about the bed of dreaded pestilence, and encouraging with 
well-founded hopes of a glory beyond the grave those whom 
heaven forbids them to restore in renovated health to a grate- 
ful country. 



REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN. 

The Eev. Chaeles Eeynolds Brown was born at Bethany, West 
Virginia, October 1, 1862 ; prepared for college in Washington Academy, 
Washington, Iowa ; graduated from University of Iowa with degree of 
A. B. in 1883 ; received degree of A. M. from same institution, 1886 ; 
graduated from Theological Seminary, Boston University, Boston, Mas- 
sachusetts, 1889; graduate-work in Harvard University, 1893-94. He 
was pastor of Wesley Chapel Methodist Church, Cincinnati, Ohio, 
1889-92; pastor of Winthrop Congregational Church, Boston, Massa- 
chusetts, 1892-96; pastor of First Congregational Church, Oakland, 
California (a church of 1,409 members, being the fourth largest church 
of the denomination in the United States), since 1896; special lecturer 
on ethics in Stanford University since 1899. Mr. Brown traveled in 
Europe in 1894, again in 1897, including Egypt, Palestine, and other 
Mediterranean countries. He has written two books, — Two Parables, 
published by Fleming H. Revell, Chicago, and The Main Points, pub- 
lished by The Whitakerand Ray Company, San Francisco, — and a num- 
ber of pamphlets, — The Outlook for Universal Peace; The Twelve Men 
and the Other Seventy; The Bow in the Cloud; The Christian Platform; 
The Message of Religion to the Men of To-day; The Contrary Winds of 
Life; The Layman's Use of the Bible; Human Forgiveness and Moral Res- 
toration; etc. Mr. Brown was married in 1896 to Miss Alice Tufts, of 
Boston, Massachusetts. 

THE LIFE COMPLETE. 

[Delivered as the baccalaureate address at Stanford University, com- 
mencement week, June, 1899.] 

The vision of a well-rounded life engages the interest of all 
aspiring men. We may call this object of desire by many 
names, — culture, education, development, civilization, — but 
these all look one way. The full, harmonious life is simply 
one that finds itself on good terms with all that may enrich 
or enlarge human existence. It makes its way up toward 
completeness by seeking to give every normal claim its appro- 
priate satisfaction. 

A well-known writer in the first century pictured this per- 

270 









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THE LIFE COMPLETE. 271 

feet life as finding its fulfillment in " a holy city." He was a 
patriotic Jew, and he called this city "the new Jerusalem." 
It was an ideal for earthly realization, for he saw it "coming 
down from God, out of heaven." Its elements were not scat- 
tered or straggling, but organized and knit together in mutual 
helpfulness. It showed the results of a symmetrical develop- 
ment, for "its length, and breadth, and height were equal." It 
was open on all sides, — "on the east three gates; on the west 
three gates; on the north three gates; and on the south three 
gates." "The kings of the earth" — the forces that lead and 
rule men — "were bringing their glory and their honor into it." 
This work of enrichment was going forward ceaselessly, for the 
gates that admitted these helpful influences were not shut at 
all by day, and there was no night there. And finally, to in- 
dicate how it faced directly upon all the interests that belong 
to humanity, he said, "the city lieth four-square." 

I shall use this last expression to suggest the four main in- 
terests in the life complete as I shall view it with you on this 
your commencement day. And I would here remind you of 
Matthew Arnold's familiar classification of the powers that 
make for fullness of life. He used to maintain that the forces 
which cultivate could all be grouped under four heads: the 
power of conduct, the power of knowledge, the power of beauty, 
and the power of social life. These are his divisions, and I 
shall use them in speaking to you of the influences that tend 
to make your lives complete. 

I. The Power of Conduct. 

It brings before us the side of life we call ethical. We all 
know that it is right to be true, pure, kind, in one's relations 
with his fellows; it is wrong to lie, to be unclean, to swerve 
from that law of love where all ethical considerations find their 
unity. It is right to live usefully; it is wrong to live selfishly. 
It is right to revere God and to trust in him. It is right to 
pray, because of the ascertained benefits that follow from such 
habit. These are a few of the main forms of effort that go to 
make up right conduct. 

Now, to do these things, and to keep on doing them until 
they become the settled disposition of the life, will bring the 
culture that comes from the power of conduct. It is the most 



272 REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN. 

important of the four — Arnold himself used to say that "con- 
duct is three fourths of life." It is the side where men are 
most commonly deficient. There are no other claims that 
need to be so steadfastly urged as those of moral obligation. 
The small and the great need to be brought, as John brings 
them in his vision, "to stand before God," to whom they are 
responsible for their choices. 

But even three fourths is not the whole; ethical conduct, 
with all its overshadowing importance, is not all of life. There 
are people who are good, — good enough, so to speak, so that 
you would not care to make them better; but somehow they 
are stupid, tiresome, disagreeable. Their lack is not in ethical 
conduct, but on some other side of that four-square city. It is 
all right for a man to be conscientious, and even saintly; but if 
you are coming to close terms with him, — if you are to marry 
him, for example, — you insist that he shall have knowledge 
and be socially acceptable. So that while we are to seek 
righteousness first, there are other values to be added unto it. 

II. The Power of Knowledge. 

I mean the ability to read, and to know what it is all about; 
the ability to know how it bears on other things you have 
read as you attempt to organize them; the ability to think, and 
when you think, to produce something that has the look and 
taste of your own mind about it; the ability to see things as 
they are, — to see three things separately with clear discrimina- 
tion, and then to see them together in their mutual relations; 
the ability to study the world about you, not merely a worm 
here and a weed there, but weeds, worms, and everything, up to 
the sun, moon, and stars, as parts of one organic whole; the 
ability to get behind and within all these phenomena and see 
who or what is there and what is meant by them all; the ability 
to study man both in detail and in the large; the ability to 
learn his ways until you know his general gait and direction; 
the ability to read history until you can strike the trail of 
human progress and follow it, — often a blind trail, but, for 
every man of vision, the real thread of the discourse. 

I mean, also, the ability to know something about literature, 
— not merely print, but literature. Much of what is printed 
and bound up is accurately called "reading-matter." But to 



THE LIFE COMPLETE. 273 

know literature is to have some appreciation and under- 
standing of the best that has been thought and said by the 
masters. If in your lifetime you can come to know fifty men 
of large build in the world of letters so that you would recog- 
nize any one of them if you saw him on the street or heard 
him talk in the dark, it will be a liberal culture. These are 
some of the elements in that power of knowledge which is to 
make its contribution to the life complete. The well-rounded 
life must surely have that side with its three gates ever open, 
so that into it the kings of thought may bring their glory and 
their honor. 

III. The Power of Beauty. 

This covers all that belongs to the aesthetic side of life. We 
meet it the moment we enter the world, in the matter of dress. 
We all wear clothes, incidentally for decenc3 T and comfort, but 
mainly that we may look well. In taking thought for the 
body, the question as to "what we shall put on" is subordinate 
to that more vital question, as to how it will look when we get 
it on. In obedience to taste in dress, we clothe men in one 
>.°y, women in another; children in one style, adults in 
another. The controlling principle throughout is aesthetic, 
and this is entirely legitimate. It is well to get yourself up so 
that people can look at you with some comfort, if it is a pos- 
sible thing. It is not three fourths of life as some fashion- 
lovers would make it, — the whole question of beauty is not 
that, — but it has value, and is by no means to be left out. 

We turn, however, to the nobler manifestations of this power, 
to the attractiveness of good architecture, — rightly built homes, 
noble public buildings, college structures whose beauty has 
come to be known the world over, the great cathedrals at 
Cologne and Venice, at Milan and Rome, the Mosque of Saint 
Sophia, and the Taj Mahal! Men travel half round the earth 
to see them, and then stand awestruck and worshipful beneath 
their greatness! 

This power includes the art of painting, — the Madonnas, 
Transfigurations and Ascensions, the portraits of Rembrandt 
and the landscapes of Turner. You spend three days in an 
Old World gallery, and you find that you have been enlarged! 
These old masters, the kings of the earth in form and color, 



274 REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN. 

have opened three gates on that side of your life as they were 
never opened before, and through them they have brought in 
their glorious lessons of beauty. 

The power of great music stands here, — real music, which 
lays hold upon you gently, but opens your nature until you 
feel as if you were all gateway on the side where it made its 
approach. You may recall the first time you heard a great 
orchestra play the overture to Tannhauser, or the fifth sym- 
phony of Beethoven, or some mighty chorus sing the oratorio 
of The Messiah! The inspiration, enjoyment, and uplift that 
came through this power of beauty were such that three gates 
seemed insufficient for the pleasure and enrichment that swept 
in upon you. 

Yet "these are but the outskirts of His ways" — we have not 
come to the point where beauty makes its mightiest appeal. 
The Omnipotent Himself stood at the beginning on this side 
of our nature and saw there three gates waiting for the message 
of beauty. He cried, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and the 
King of glory shall come in." As his summons met response, 
He sent through these gateways sunsets and rainbows, the 
heavens shining with other worlds and declaring the glory of 
God! He sent mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes! He 
sent the quiet beauty of the soft pine woods and the awful 
grandeur of the ocean in a storm! He called upon men to 
stand in Yosemite, to pass in review the Bernese Oberland, 
to cast their eyes along the solemn chasms of the Canon of 
the Colorado! These are some of God's tributes to our sense 
of beauty. In every life complete there must be at least three 
"gates of the temple called Beautiful." 

IV. The Power of Social Life. 

We find here the touch of life on life, immediate and direct, 
with no intervention of printed page or painted canvas. It is 
not good for man to be alone, for we sharpen and polish one 
another by being rubbed together. This power includes con- 
versation, debate, public address; the easy touch-and-go talk 
of the club or dinner-table; the solid and wholesome enjoy- 
ment of genuine friendship, where the deeper natures look on 
one another unveiled and are not afraid nor ashamed; the 
love of husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, 



THE LIFE COMPLETE. 275 

— it includes all that is suggested in the art of living together. 
It is a wide and noble side of the four-square life, and the 
various social relationships fill it with gateways for holy, help- 
ful influences to come in. 

The power of social life includes all that belongs to our as- 
sociated life. The Church is strong because it is the associated 
religious life of the world. The government is strong because 
it embodies the associated political life of a nation. The com- 
merce of the world is simply the associated industrial effort of 
the race. The individual man does not go out and dig his own 
dinner out of the ground, or shoot it in the chase, or pick it 
from the trees, as once he did. He is still bent on gaining his 
individual dinner and all else that feeds him, but he does it 
now in more intricate ways, for industrial effort has become 
highly social. This stimulus from society includes also the 
keen whip of competition, the recognized advantages of union, 
the whole beat and play of all those social forces that help to 
train men in resolute, skillful, inventive life. 

This social life has high moral values. It brings us together 
and teaches us our need of one another. It makes us sympa- 
thetic and understanding. You cannot love your neighbor by 
a sheer lift of resolute will. You must first discover his lov- 
able aspects, and he, too, must find you out. The great net- 
work of horizontal relationships between man and man is 
fraught with possibilities as holy as is that perpendicular rela- 
tionship which each man sustains with God. The entire grip 
of these social ties and influences upon us, so powerful for good 
or ill, makes up this fourth side of the life complete. 

There you have the four sides of the ideal life! You cannot 
name an earthly influence which they do not include. The 
power of right conduct toward God and man, the power of 
knowledge, the power of beauty, and the power of social life, — 
these four front directly on all that makes for a full humanity! 
They give the needed length and breadth; and when at last, 
on all these sides, we gain the needed height, our lives will be 
complete and perfect, even as the life of the Father in heaven 
is perfect. 

It is also interesting, in this connection, to note how God 
has provided for these essential interests. He has from time 



276 REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN. 

to time raised up a people to make a specialty of one of these 
sets of values, and to lift it to a place where the world would 
recognize its abiding worth. The nations are all members of 
the body of humanity, but all nations have not the same office. 
Each "chosen people" is therefore guided to its appropriate 
place and ordered to build its life into that section of the total 
civilization. 

Conduct is the most important, the overshadowing three 
fourths of life, and the first chosen people was selected for that 
service. The Hebrew nation had a genius for religion and 
morals. It had a clear consciousness of its mission. Moses 
cried to the Israelites, "What nation has judgments and 
statutes so righteous as the law which I set before you this 
day? Keep, therefore, and do them, for this is your wisdom 
and your understanding in the sight of the nations." And 
Jesus said, "We know whom we worship, for salvation is of 
the Jews." Their claim is well sustained by the facts. The 
religion of the Hebrews is the commanding religion of the 
world. More and more widely, men believe in the God of 
Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. The most enlightened 
and progressive nations are agreed that the Hebrews gave us 
the saving Book, and that the Saviour of mankind was born 
in Bethlehem of Judea. The names of the twelve Hebrew 
apostles are written on the twelve foundation-stones of that 
ideal society which John saw descending out of heaven. The 
Hebrews have wrought powerfully for conduct. They found 
their strength and took the lead along that line of service. So 
it would seem that in marshaling His forces for humanizing 
the race, God chose these Hebrews, led them to the conduct 
side of the four-square city, and bade them build there three 
gates, — the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel! Then through 
these three gates these kings of conduct have brought their 
glory and their honor into our humanity. 

But in secular knowledge the Hebrews have not accom- 
plished so much. Aside from their religious writings, there is 
no Hebrew literature. They have cut no figure in science or 
philosophy. Some other people had to be chosen for knowl- 
edge. The first people to appear on the knowledge side and 
definitely build gates were the Greeks. While the Hebrews 



THE LIFE COMPLETE. 277 

were hungering and thirsting after righteousness, the Greeks 
were hungry for knowledge — and they were filled. In phi- 
losophy, in poetry, and in eloquence, they have taught the 
world. Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle, iEschylus, Homer, and 
Demosthenes, are masters now in Oxford and Cambridge, in 
Harvard and Yale, in Berkeley and Stanford. 

But after a time the Greeks became too corrupt morally, too 
weak and degenerate, to stand on any side of the four-square 
city. They were thrust aside and another people chosen. 
We need not stop to trace the history of it all, but at present 
the Germans seem to hold the right of the line in knowledge. 
They have the genius for knowing things. In three of the 
important branches of human inquiry they are acknowledged 
to stand first, — in theology, the knowledge of the spirit and its 
salvation; in philosophy, the knowledge of the mind and its 
processes; in medicine, the knowledge of the body and its 
treatment. Clergymen go to Berlin and Heidelberg for theol- 
ogy; professors to Leipzig and Gottingen for philosophy and 
psychology; physicians to Vienna for surgery and medicine. 
We see students crowding thither from the four quarters of the 
globe, for the Germans have made their way to the knowledge 
side of the city, and built there these three gates, — Theology, 
Philosophy, and Medicine, — and through these gates they bring 
their glory and honor into the course of human progress. 

The Hebrews made for righteousness, but not for beauty. 
They painted no pictures, carved no statues, erected no cathe- 
drals. Some other race must be found to build "the beautiful 
gates of the temple." I shall not trace earlier movements, but 
will come at once to Italy. The spirit of beauty was in the 
very air — look up, and the Italian skies are the loveliest in 
the world! The fairest lakes that lie out of doors are Como, 
Lugano, and Maggiore. The people were steeped in beauty 
for centuries. On all questions of beauty or ugliness, they 
learned to speak as having authority, and not as the scribes. 

Naturally, then, you find here such names as Raphael and 
Michael Angelo, Titian and Tintoretto, Leonardo da Vinci and 
Andrea del Sarto, with hosts of other names famous forever! 
Where would the world go for pictures and statuary if the 
Italians had not stood on their side of the four-square city, 



278 REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN. 

painting Sistine Madonnas and Transfigurations, carving the 
Moses and the Day and Night! They also built their side of the 
city "like a wall great and high, . . . having in it the glory 
of God." The cathedrals at Milan and Florence, St. Mark's at 
Venice and St. Peter's at Rome, all testify to the Italian sense 
of lofty beauty. No race has here outshone them. Therefore 
when the artists and the builders would learn lessons of beauty, 
they travel to the Italian side of the city and sit down before 
the works of these masters. Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, 

— these are their three great gates, and through them their 
race has brought in its full meed of glory and honor. 

The power of social life is largely yet to be. It still remains 
for some nation to perfect the art of living together, and lift 
this value to its coign of vantage. In the reign of Louis XIV., 
however, there was a constellation of great names at Paris, and 
in the talk of those salons the art of conversation seemed to 
find its highest expression. People without the silly tools of 
amusement that society so leans upon to-day, met and talked 

— and the touch of mind on mind gave them bread enough 
and to spare. They spoke their language so well that they 
left the social imprint upon it — in no language is keen, bright, 
airy conversation so natural as in French. But, like the 
Greeks, they lost their wide influence for lack of moral 
strength. The loss in reverence, the hardness and recklessness 
that comes by vice, the flippancy and heartlessness that en- 
sued, unfitted them to hold supreme place on any side of the 
ideal city. 

I have cherished the hope sometimes, that in determining the 
place of the individual in society, in organizing him with his 
fellows, and in building the social life of the future in fearless 
harmony with the ideals of pure democracy, the Americans might 
find their largest usefulness. There has been among us a marked 
development of the social conscience, a new sense of the fact that 
we are members one of another, a deeper feeling of obligation 
on the part of the strong to bear the infirmities of the weak, 
a growing habit of measuring greatness as Jesus measured it, 
by social service! These are the aspects of religion emphasized 
in the pulpits of the English-speaking world to-day as they 
were never emphasized anywhere before. The leading note of 



THE LIFE COMPLETE. 279 

the religion of the day is not dogmatic, nor ecclesiastical, nor 
emotional, but ethical and practical. The main outlet for the 
moral life is that of humane endeavor. The call that sounds 
imperative in the ears of our time comes not down from the 
skies, but up out of the common want; and the words of the 
call are, "Inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these, ye do 
it unto Me." Would that all these hopeful signs might find 
their fulfillment in a social structure built in fearless harmony 
with the principles of Him who made the spirit of fraternity 
the test of discipleship. " By this shall all men know that ye 
are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." 

Members of the graduating class, I bring you this message 
to-day because the university is a place where all the human 
interests are within hailing distance. It is one of the marks 
of the educated man, that while he finds his special usefulness 
on this side or on that of the life complete, he lives in sympa- 
thetic appreciation of all the values that lie upon the farther 
sides of the four-square city. 

Hold then this vision before you and build for it! Let your 
own individual nature go up all around! On the side of con- 
duct, do right toward God and toward .your neighbor. Hear 
the words of the Complete Man, the Son of man, and do them, 
that you may build your house upon a rock. Then get wisdom, 
and in all your getting, get understanding. Let your mind 
claim all that lies within your reach. Collect, relate, and 
mortar your facts together by solid thinking until that side of 
your nature is broad and high. Then open the beautiful gate 
of the temple; hear good music, admire fine pictures, study 
the lines of noble buildings, and, above all, rejoice in the 
stimulus of the great outdoors which God has made so rich 
for every one who has eyes to see! And, once more, live in 
warm and ready sympathy with those about you, building 
yourself as a useful member into the political, industrial, 
social, and domestic body of humanity! 

These are all royal influences, bringing glory and honor 
into the cultured life. It is for you to open three gates each 
way, that every one may freely bring its best. But over and 
above them all there is the King of all the kings. Earth's 
forces may give length and breadth to your life, but the real 



280 REV. CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN. 

height of it, the upward reach and godliness of it, must come 
from above. If all these elements of completeness are to be 
built genuinely and permanently into the structure, it must 
come through the unifying touch of the Spirit of the living 
God. Open that upper door where He, too, stands and knocks! 
Lift up that gate that the King of glory may come in! Then 
when His spirit shall have entered your heart, and by vital 
fellowship shall have become the supreme influence of all, you 
will rightly use these forces to make your life complete; and 
you will at last become like Him, for you will see Him 
He is. 



nd 

as 




; 



HON. JOHN P. IRISH. 

John P. Ikish was born in Iowa City, Iowa, January 1, 1843, and 
was educated in the primitive public schools of the frontier. Before 
reaching his majority he was a school teacher, was admitted to the bar, 
but entered journalism as a profession. For twenty years he was edi- 
tor and proprietor of the Iowa State Press, was three times elected a rep- 
resentative in the Iowa legislature, and was a regent of the university 
of that state ; was once his party's candidate for governor, and twice ran 
for Congress in Iowa and once in California. His public addresses have 
been upon economic and financial questions ; and as an advocate of the 
gold standard and sound money, his speeches were part of the great 
educational movement on that issue. In this state he edited the Oak- 
land Times and the Alta California, and has been a constant and copi- 
ous writer and speaker on economics, finance, and sociology. 

MEMORIAL ADDRESS ON GOVERNOR BARTLETT. 

[Delivered before both branches of the legislature, assembled in joint 
session in the assembly chamber of the Capitol at Sacramento, on Feb- 
ruary 6, 1889, to render public homage to the memory of Governor 
Washington Bartlett.] 

We have met in this dignified presence to pay the official 
respect due from California to the memory of a governor who 
died in office. This action is the fitting supplement to the 
many private and individual expressions of regret and affec- 
tion which followed the untimely close of his last and largest 
public relation to the people of this commonwealth, and his 
translation from service in its capital to the rewards of the 
just in the capital of the universe. 

I salute his constitutional successor with a sense of civic 
pride, and the second in succession, the presiding officer of the 
higher chamber of this honorable legislature, with fraternal 
regard. And I hail them both as witnesses to the resources 
and immortality of our free institutions, which provide that 
sacred public trusts for the maintenance of liberty shall never 
fail for lack of a trustee. 

281 



282 HON. JOHN P. IEISH. 

This ceremony would be ceremony only, signifying nothing, 
did we fail to recall, and consider, and take to heart some of 
the rich lessons of the life and the death that have deserved 
these formalities. 

In this government it is ordered that human liberty does 
not depend upon the favor of men, for it has been anchored in 
the law, which is immortal. But here, as in all the earth, 
human virtue and the qualities of honor and fidelity are made 
to depend upon the good example of men who have held them, 
above all things, priceless and better than life. That these ele- 
ments of character are to have perpetual succession in the 
world can be proved only in one way, and this day is to be of 
record amongst the mass of evidence. That proof is, that the 
sensibilities of men are quickened and their spirits are lifted 
in the presence of the upright man or in the contemplation of 
his memory, and from him they never withhold the final 
honors, which are not the due of station, but of character 
only. 

In our free society, that man is great who always does his 
duty with clean hands. It may fall to him to command or be 
commanded in battle; let him, then, be a whole man, for his 
country expects her sons to be heroes, and not cowards. He 
may sit in judgment in the tribunals which construe the law; 
then let him remember that his function is the reflection 
of that of Him who cometh to judge the quick and the dead, 
and be just. He may be a lawmaker, — a high function, which 
is, amongst men, the counterpart of what nature has done in 
the immeasurable spaces of the universe; then let the law- 
maker see to it that the very fountain of order, the source of 
statutes, shall be without guile. If he be the executor of that 
law, let him remember that what originates in purity must be 
administered in justice; and if he be the power that is higher 
than these, — the citizen, — may he remember that a vestal 
ballot, unbought and unbribed, is the very scripture of lib- 
erty, inspired by it and preservative of it. 

In those governments which are unlike ours, greatness is 
often achieved by means that would be repugnant to the 
American conscience. A ruler expects that his stature in his- 
tory will be measured by the truculence of his policy, by wars 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS ON GOVERNOR BARTLETT. 283 

provoked, and by victories won by his arms; and unless his 
career is spectacular and full of circumstance, he is held to 
have added nothing to the glory of his country or his dynasty. 
With us, greatness rests upon dutiful obedience to the law. 
Tried at last by time, our public men may hope for noble 
prominence in history only by exercising the unfailing self- 
restraint which associates their names with no breach of the 
law of the land, beyond whose verge and limit ambition has 
no virtue. 

In other lands, the path of glory overpasses this frontier, 
and laws and heads and hearts are broken by ambition, grown 
to be a vice by the absence of restraint. 

The safety of a free state is in its administration by men 
who refuse to accomplish what is merely expedient by inva- 
sion of that which is right. The latitudinarian, who regards 
government as a special providence, benignly administering 
narcotic kindness to all human aches and pains, and commis- 
I sioned to avert the penalties of transgression, may pass, in his 
generation, as a philanthropist, but he will not be remembered 
i as a statesman. His policy will soften the fibers of character, 
j weaken the resistant powers of men, and finally turn govern- 
| ment into a thoughtless benevolence, and the governed into 
helpless dependents upon its bounty. 

This theory and method would have built the temple of lib- 
erty entirely of mortar, without buttress, or brace, or pilaster, 
i and would have left us without the occasion for such fine illus- 
, trations of manly strength of character as we are about to con- 
sider. 

The peculiar virtue of our government, then, is, that it 
I makes him greatest who, under greatest temptation, is most 
obedient to the law, and it calls into constant activity that in- 
■ dependence which self-centers men and makes them the pro- 
tectors of the government rather than suppliants for its protec- 
tion. 

Studied from each of these base-lines, we are here to honor 
the memory of a Californian who was by the one standard 
great, and by the other, an example of American self-reliance. 
In the presence of her lawmakers and governor, and of the 
honorable justices of her supreme court, this commonwealth 



284 HON. JOHN P. IRISH. 

offers heartfelt and affectionate honors to the memory of 
Washington Bartlett, her great and steadfast citizen. 

His lineage is illustrious, for it furnished a signer to the 
Declaration of Independence, one of that good company of 
fifty-six patriots upon whose heads a price was set because 
they loved their country, and of whom it may be said that in 
public life and private station they held themselves above 
price to the end; and the keenest research amongst their de- 
scendants is said to show, that not one of them has ever been 
guilty of an act of turpitude or dishonor. Ancient empires 
claimed miraculous origin, or a foundation laid in some ex- 
ceptional circumstance of human force. Let it be the ever- 
affluent source of our patriotic pride that this nation took its 
rise under the hands of these men, in whom purity of charac- 
ter was such a master quality that its prepotency is mani- 
fested in the transmission of their traits across more than a 
century of time and trial. 

This family furnished patriots to establish the principles of 
the Declaration, and a governor to one of the colonies which 
first took up arms in its defense; and this son of that line of 
sires had the rare felicity to begin his life at a time that en- 
riched the memories of his childhood with the stories of that 
tempest and convulsion in which the Revolution was accom- 
plished and freedom was established throughout the land. 
When he was a child, the stars in our galaxy of Revolution- 
ary worthies were one by one passing away, to shine in the 
firmament eternal. While he was at his mother's side, Jeffer- 
son and Adams went hand in hand from a world in which 
they had made a shelter for the rights of man; and when he 
was a lad, already invested with the staid and solid traits that 
foretold an honorable future, Charles Carroll, the last of the 
signers of the Declaration, passed from the presence of his 
countrymen into that of his God. The men who began their 
lives in that time of patriotic inspiration are no longer numer- 
ous. To them the characters of the Revolution were flesh and 
blood. To us they are already idealized, and if we encounter 
a venerable citizen, surviving beyond life's allotted limit, who 
may have stood face to face with Washington or Jefferson, we 
regard him almost with that awe with which primitive people 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS ON GOVERNOR BARTLETT. 285 

look upon one who is believed to have had a supernatural ex- 
perience. 

Amongst the causes of excellence in that character which we 
have suspended public and private business to study, was 
this early contact with the motives, and the men, and the 
traditions of the Revolution. This experience is denied to 
us of later generations, but we may transmit its unquenched 
illumination to light the future welkin by such commemorative 
and memorial honors as we are here to render. 

Washington Bartlett, following the intellectual habit of his 
ancestors, and with that spirit of independence and self-reli- 
ance which came down to him from the Puritan founders of 
his family, early devised ways of self-support. In those days, 
lads were educated sooner, and maybe sounder, than now, and 
were ready for active life at the age at which many in the 
present day are preparing to matriculate in college. Adams 
and Jefferson were out of school and deep in affairs before they 
were bearded, and Calhoun entered Yale in 1802, and gradu- 
ated with all the college honors in 1804, with the flush of boy- 
hood on his cheek. So we find young Bartlett pushing his 
fortunes in Florida, at the head of a newspaper, and elected 
the first state printer of that state upon its admission to the 
Union in 1845, before he had reached the age of twenty-two. 
He seems to have instinctively grown with perfect harmony of 
development toward both law and journalism. The former he 
knew in its philosophy, as the science of human life, and he 
had so mastered the amazing detail of its application to affairs 
as to prove a theory upon which I have often insisted, that a 
knowledge of the capital principles of law is an invaluable 
equipment for a man, either in public or private business. It 
makes better business men, by equipping them for protection 
of their own rights, and no man is so respectful of the rights 
of others as he who knows and guards his own. Again, it 
makes better lawyers, for such questions as come to the courts 
are refined and ready for scientific test, and do not require the 
treatment that must be given to issues generated in hopeless 
ignorance. 

In journalism he belonged to a school of writers and workers 
that made the press a potent public educator. The newspaper 



286 HON. JOHN P. IRISH. 

now either abdicates or abuses its educating function. It has 
become the town gossiper. The tattle of the tea-table and the 
toilets displayed in the foyer are the most innocent parts of its 
material. Let us hope that this condition is a passing fashion, 
and that the rage for news, so great that it demands invention, 
just as a depraved appetite is quenched for the time by adul- 
terated drink, may, like other manias, spend its force, and 
press and patrons come to agree that invented news is not 
news at all. Then we may find again in journalism men who 
have a message, who are thrilled by convictions, who are 
teachers. 

When the fame of California, the new Ophir, became a pillar 
of fire by night and a pillar of cloud b}^ day, guiding the 
world's spirit of adventure, Florida ceased to charm the young 
journalist, and shipping the material for a printing-office to 
Charleston for transshipment there to San Francisco, he soon 
followed, landing here in 1849. He was a part of that won- 
derful migration, the like of which will not be seen again. 
Across the plains, over the Isthmus, and around the Horn 
they came. They were empire-builders. They came through 
risk and danger. Savage tribes disputed their passage, laid 
tribute upon them, and made their march a skirmish from the 
Missouri to the Sacramento. On the Isthmus, where the tropic 
earth sweats death, the fever lurked in ambush, and with its 
infernal hand held many a gallant heart until its struggles 
were over. By sea, the cholera, swift-sailing pirate, flew its 
black flag and boarded ships freighted to their limit with hu- 
man life, to turn them into charnel-houses. Still the march- 
ing columns came, and every man a hero. I remember how the 
flower of the pioneers who had made conquest of my native 
frontier caught the contagion of adventure, and setting their 
faces westward, marched into the afternoon, while our strained 
eyes followed their retreating shadows, and the night received 
them, and when morning shone again the world was lonesome. 
Theirs was high courage. They battled against the forces of 
nature; they withstood all that can appal the heart and make 
the flesh confess its weakness, and the conquest they made is 
our inheritance. It lies around us in the vineyards that pur- 
ple in their season, the orchards, and the far-reaching glebe. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS ON GOVERNOR BARTLETT. 287 

It is in the homes of California, under whose rose-clad lintels 
the kiss of wifely love waits the home-coming of the men who 
have wrought quiet fortune out of the land of promise, sought 
and saved by the pioneers through adventures and sacrifices 
which gild their names with honor imperishable. 

He was one of that band of picked men, and at once went to 
the front. His newspaper dealt with the dynamics, the for- 
tune-yielding powers, of the new land. With the judgment of 
a veteran and the zeal of a neophyte, he began quest into the 
resources and advantages of the state which was finally to ac- 
knowledge his headship. Commerce, agriculture, and mining 
were the favorite themes upon which he wrought with vivid 
descriptive force, while he brought his instinctive taste for the 
law to bear in counsel concerning the necessary civic founda- 
tion of the state's polity. He knew perfectly the ethics of 
journalism. They were to him a code of honor, and during 
this part of his career he kept them like a stainless escutcheon, 
with no bar sinister. For ten years he confined his exertions 
to his newspaper-work. During that time the great fires which 
laid San Francisco in ashes twice destroyed his property, but 
his perseverance overpassed all difficulties, and his gains in 
that decade were the beginning of his modest fortune. During 
that period the people of San Francisco discovered that the gov- 
ernment which most affected them was that which was near- 
est to them, and when its inefficiency, or indifference, or lack 
of organic strength, had permitted intolerable evils, they re- 
called its trusteeship and perfected and purified its methods by 
enlisting the whole civic body in the administration of justice. 
These events greatly increased the responsibility and impor- 
tance of the local offices, and to the most powerful of these 
Mr. Bartlett was chosen in 1859. He had stood with the 
people in kindling the refining fires of reform, and had guarded 
them from becoming a conflagration to destroy what they 
were intended only to purify. In doing his part he had mani- 
fested the militant spirit of a warrior. In his action one gets 
an enchanting glimpse of the fires still burning in him which 
had been kindled in the soul of his Revolutionary ancestor, 
who preferred to offer his neck to the sword of a headsman 
rather than to the yoke of a tyrant. 



288 HON. JOHN P. IRISH. 

When the people took him from his desk to be clerk of the 
metropolitan county, they were merely continuing the depu- 
rating processes by which they had twice cleansed their local 
government. But they robbed journalism of a knightly dev- 
otee, though they gave to public life a great example. 

His subsequent service in the state senate, and his unceasing 
efforts to keep the state and municipal statutes strong for 
popular defense and for the fostering of the great materialities 
of California, and at the same time free from the impingement 
of schemes to advance private ends at the general expense, are 
matters of common knowledge. They made up that faultless 
personal record upon which he was twice elected mayor of San 
Francisco. The city, once inferior to many within our bor- 
ders, but whose future primacy he foresaw and foretold in her 
weakness, in her strength called him with the voice of com- 
mand, and he guided her enlarged and enlarging destiny 
through a period critical and crucial in many ways. 

After his election to the governorship, the President of the 
United States asked me the reason of a result which amounted 
to a revolution in the politics of the state. I sketched briefly 
the incidents of his service as mayor. It was a story of public 
credit restored; of disordered finance steadied and straight- 
ened; of resumption of the discharge of current cost of gov- 
ernment by the use of current revenue and the payment of 
past deficits without the future burden of a bonded debt. As 
I told it, the President's fine face, which is cast in that outline 
which the Greeks gave to their heroes, in whom they idealized 
power, and purpose, and purity, was aflame with vivid interest, 
and his comment was expressive of the conviction that in men 
who can do such things in executive office, we have that salt 
of our institutions whose savor is their preservative prin- 
ciple. 

Before this service had ended, the suffrage of his party offered 
him to the people for governor of the state. I say the suffrage 
of his party, as distinct from the partisan mechanism which 
secures results against the drift or opposed to the expressed 
preference of public opinion. An observer of political events 
must concede that, after all, parties, in this country, in a ma- 
jority of instances, seek out the man of merit and make his 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS ON GOVERNOR BARTLETT. 289 

fortunes the object of their care. If a young man should ask 
me what are the four cardinal points of the political compass 
by which he intends to steer his way to public honors, not- 
withstanding some cases which are quoted to prove the oppo- 
site, I should tell him that the first cardinal point is, fidelity 
to the people, and that the second is, fidelity to the people, 
and that the third is, fidelity to the people, and that the fourth 
is, fidelity to the people; not running with the masses when 
they chase chimeras, but faithful devotion to the few and sim- 
ple principles upon which alone popular government can be 
long administered. 

The contest which followed this nomination is memorable. 
Opposed to him was one of our foremost citizens, a pioneer, 
a man of conspicuous talents and stainless honor. As the 
struggle progressed it attracted national attention. New Eng- 
land, mindful of this descendant of her early defenders, who 
had in his veins the blood of the Revolutionary governor of 
one of her states, viewed the combat from afar with strained 
attention to its incidents. The South, where his father sleeps, 
and where his life began, joined the audience which faced tow- 
ard California. Here the emergencies of the battle called 
from long retirement the eloquent Booth, who had himself been 
governor and Senator, and now stood against destiny, but with 
that forbearance in speech which cannot be too often illustrated 
upon the stump. The banner of Bartlett was gallantly ad- 
< vanced by White and a score of young men. 

In that dignified competition I was thrown into very inti- 
mate association with him whose death has put upon me this 
heavy duty. It was at a time in which a man's genuine char- 
t acter is visible to the keen observer, in lights that are not pos- 
- sible under other circumstances. He was of a retiring, almost 
, shy, disposition, reserved in manner, and innocent of those arts 
which make what we call, in politics, "a good mixer." He had 
no tricks of speech or manner by which to catch the popular 
eye or fancy. In friendly or cultured association he always 
sustained himself. He surprised me not only by the extent 
but also by the exactness of his knowledge. As I knew him 
better, I saw in him that which goes for evidence of genius; he 
would state a principle and leave those to whom it was novel 



I 



290 HON. JOHN P. IEISH. 

to argue their way up to it. During his candidacy he made but 
few speeches, but they were models of statement. Indeed, he 
was better able than any public man I have known to illus- 
trate the difference between statement and oratory. He was a 
master of statement. To oratory he made no pretensions. 
Yet I never witnessed results more satisfactory wrought upon 
popular audiences than those which followed his speeches. 
They seemed to refresh the intelligence to which they were ad- 
dressed. Their meaning was always clear; and I am sure that 
younger men who speak in public would have a pearl of great 
price if they could always command the power to make their 
meaning clear, which ought to be the only object of public 
speaking. 

At the end he was chosen to be chief of the state, to control 
the affairs of a territory larger than Great Britain or Prussia. 

Nearly twoscore years had passed since he came, in the flush 
and prime of his youth, an immigrant, to the land that now 
bestowed upon him the highest civic honor in the gift of its 
people. 

While in the office of mayor he had found, as he said on 
exchanging it for the larger trust, that under the polity of that 
city the mayor had responsibilities in excess of his power of 
efficient action. I have often reflected upon how much is 
covered by that simple statement of a grave organic defect. 
But at last he had reached executive functions that were up to 
the measure of his matured powers and ripe experience. He 
entered a trusteeship in which responsibility and freedom of 
action and fullness of power were concurrent. He succeeded 
able men, for California has been nicely discriminating in her 
choice of governors. But it is a peculiarity of our form of 
government that its affairs never reach the angle of repose. 
If they did, there would be a relaxation of that eternal vigi- 
lance which is the price of liberty. But that relaxation is 
never permitted, and so, no matter how successful an adminis- 
tration, it does not leave behind it a circle of finalities, of bal- 
anced books and concluded controversies, leaving the state like 
a clock wound up and warranted to run, needing only winding 
again at stated periods. 

Again, in some respects Governor Bartlett had an equipment 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS ON GOVERNOR BARTLETT. 291 

which gave him a keener vision than is often the gift of men 
who reach that station. He had been a close student of gov- 
ernment. His suggestions as he introduced his successor, the 
present able mayor of San Francisco, prove that he had 
threaded patiently through the labyrinth of that municipal 
government. He had observed its composite structure, — one 
office overlapping another, or two offices that should have con- 
tact, non-confluent. He knew how difficult this condition 
makes economical and efficient government. He was an ex- 
pert executive, in fine, to whom office was not a prize. It was 
a position. A call to public duty impressed him just as would 
a summons to private duty. It meant work. His inaugural 
address stated the great laws of public finance in the smallest 
compass. He notified all those standing at the outlets of the 
treasury that the toilers who supply the inlets by taxation had 
rights which he proposed should be cared for, "because ex- 
travagance in public business places unnecessary burdens on 
the people, which it impairs their ability to bear, by lessening 
the value of their property," — an axiom which I take from 
him and commend to all who hear me. 

But alas for the futility of human hopes! The head stores 
up wisdom, the heart virtue, and man takes on the strength of 
many experiences. But the years which add to his mind in- 
vade the strength of his body. The god of bounds has set a 
limit to life; and while some reach it in infancy and others in 
age, and each man soothes himself with the delusion that all 
are mortal but himself, all that are, reach it. 

Bodily weakness began to pre} 7 upon the people's elect. He 
was a man of stalwart make. There was in him a suggestion 
of the granite of New Hampshire, where his forefathers were 
born, and of the live-oak of the South, where he was born. 
But age and toil and the early vicissitudes of his pioneer ex- 
perience foreclosed upon him. You know the painful days he 
passed in this Capitol, participating with the last legislature in 
caring for the public interest. You know his patient examina- 
tion of every measure, his free use of the veto and frank out- 
giving of reasons for it, when he differed with this body upon 
the expediency or constitutionality of any proposition. 

With the close of the session, he sought relief in relaxation, 



292 HON. JOHN P. IEISH. 

but too late. Not many look as steadily as he did at the hori- 
zon of life when it no longer recedes upon approach. For 
reasons which a chivalrous delicacy secluded from the public, 
he had lived a celibate life, but therefore let no one fancy that 
he had lived a recluse, with none of those experiences which 
soften and embellish existence. To his sick-room came the 
young relatives, the nephews and nieces, who had enjoyed his 
almost parental care, and repaid it with most affectionate 
attentions. I will speak no further of these last scenes in their 
phases not connected with the public. They reveal brotherly 
affection and fraternal sorrow, which belong to the sad and 
inevitable incidents of mortality, and which, in this degree of 
intensity, tell the story of ties of brotherhood beginning with 
life and strengthened by the flight of time. 

But of his anxiety to be strong that he might resume his 
public duties I may speak. He lamented his disability be- 
cause it withdrew him, to a degree, from the hard labors he 
had planned. His official routine was attended to. No 
current business of the governor's office suffered during his 
protracted illness. But the duties outside of routine that he 
desired to take up must wait, and this caused whatever of 
impatience shadowed the serenity of those last weeks of his 
life. At last came the fatal stroke. The nerves snapped under 
long-sustained tension, and the brain survived the body. Who 
can forget the calmness and courage with which he submitted 
to the manifest will of Heaven! His methodical business 
habits kept his private affairs in order, and they needed no 
attention. He devoted himself to providing against confusion 
in the public business. Dictating a dispatch to his successor, 
he provided against inconvenience to the state in the event of 
a period of unconsciousness supervening upon paralysis, and 
then calmly awaited the change. 

So I have sketched, far less skillfully than the subject de- 
served, a career that deserves study as an upright example. 

Human experiences, the victories and defeats, the joys and 
sorrows, of life, convene near its close, and join, sometimes, in 
asking, "Is life worth living?" But the question is answered 
by an older question, which is now, and ever shall be, world 
without end, the sum and verdict of all humanity, which, 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS ON GOVERNOR BARTLETT. 293 

standing at the veil between the two worlds, lovingly forgets 
the vexations and remembers the virtues of life, and asks, "If 
a man die, shall he live again?" 

The faithful soul is not disquieted by either query. If Gov- 
ernor Bartlett in his public speeches illustrated the difference 
between statement and oratory, he yet more clearly in his 
hours of personal confidence illustrated the difference between 
faith and credulity. Faith sustained him in the supreme 
hour, and lighted him on the pathway ineffable. 

His life, which began as the first group of American patriots 
were passing away, spanned that period in our history in 
which principles of government, for ages held in solution, and 
at last crystallized in our constitution, were concreting in in- 
stitutional form. He did his part in that period without 
ostentation, but with power, as assigned to him by circum- 
stances, and his career closed in close association with the 
sages and soldiers who, like him, had done their part in a 
time of ferment and formation, out of which issued absolute 
homogeneity of our institutions, Federal and domestic. His 
death occurred in a period made memorable by the loss of 
Grant and Hancock, of McClellan and Logan, of Tilden, Sey- 
mour, and Hendricks, — a company to which he was kindred 
in qualities and service, and one in which California proudly, 
and fondly, and tenderly leaves him. 

Others will sit in the place of power. The authority ac- 
cepted by him as a laborious responsibility will be clutched 
at often as the prize of ambition. The great state that held so 
large a place in his affections will go forward to the imperial 
future which his fancy pictured when her untamed beauty was 
her only dower. The procession of pioneers on the hither side 
of the valley of shadows will shorten as that on the farther 
verge grows longer, until all have passed over, and that grim 
emblem of conquest, the Bear Flag, is given to the winds 
as a memory only. Time and change will leave their tracery 
on all that is, but no mutation shall give to dull forgetfulness 
the public virtues and the private graces of the first governor 
of California who passed from office to immortality. 



HON. HENRY C. DIBBLE. 

The life of Henry C. Dibble is crowded with incidents. He was born 
in Indiana, in 1844, of New England and Huguenot descent, and was a 
boy of eighteen in the Union army when he lost a leg at Port Hudson ; 
admitted to the bar by the supreme court of Louisiana in 1865, before 
he was twenty-one ; two years later, a graduate of the law department 
of the University of Louisiana ; at the head of the Republican organi- 
zation in New Orleans at twenty three ; a noted lawyer in connection 
with the public litigation which arose under reconstruction ; appointed 
judge of a high court in New Orleans at twenty-five ; three years on the 
bench ; assistant and acting attorney-general of Louisiana for three 
years ; in the mean time president of the school board of New Orleans 
for six years ; after a short period of travel in Europe, twice a candi- 
date for Congress, and, during all, a constant public speaker ; then, at 
the close of reconstruction, and, for that matter, during his whole 
career, a forcible and trenchant editorial-writer. Two years in Arizona, 
during which time he became one of the leading mining lawyers at the 
great camp at Tombstone, and also a practical mining superintendent 
in charge of the mines of Haggin and Hearst. He was a law partner of 
ex-Chief Justice Lewis of Nevada, and came to San Francisco in 1883, 
where he has since resided, and where his activity has been scarcely 
less than when in Louisiana. After the death of Judge Lewis he was 
assistant United States attorney for three years ; but resigned to form 
a law partnership with a son of J. B. Haggin, and to take charge of the 
vast legal business of Haggin and Hearst. On the retirement of the 
Haggins to New York after the death of Senator Hearst, Judge Dibble 
became less active in practice and more absorbed in public affairs. He 
has served eight years in the legislature of California, where he has 
always been recognized as the Republican leader. A master of parlia- 
mentary law, a fluent debater, and an organizer without a peer, he has 
held the reins of power with an easy hand. During this period he gave 
a portion of time for three years to constant editorial- writing. To 
summarize, we have the condensed and crowded life-story of a soldier 
for two years while a boy, a lawyer of distinction before he was twenty- 
five, a judge thereafter for three years, an educator, a political organ- 
izer, an orator of high standing, an editorial-writer of note, a legislator 
and parliamentary leader. Then, through all, he has preserved his 
interest in military affairs, having been a brigadier-general on the staff 
of the governor of Louisiana, and an active member of the Grand Army 

294 



LOYALTY TO THE NATION. 295 

of the Republic, in which he has held many high offices. Judge Dibble 
is also the author of a novel entitled The Sequel to a Tragedy, and of 
numerous short stories. 

LOYALTY TO THE NATION. 

[A Memorial Day address delivered at San Jos6, California, May 30, 
1897.] 

Comrades of the Grand Army, Ladies, and Gentlemen, 
— The loyal citizens of the republic have again celebrated Me- 
morial Day. Again in all the cities, towns, and villages of the 
North and West, in every national cemetery near the great bat- 
tle-fields of the War, wherever the soldiers and sailors of the 
Union army and navy lie buried in any numbers, loyal men 
and women and their children have once more gathered to ob- 
serve the day, as they have done in this beautiful California 
city. The few remaining mothers and fathers, now in the sear 
and yellow leaf, whose hero sons, though they would be gray- 
headed were they living, are still remembered by them as 
blithe and happy boys, who, suddenly inspired with patriotism 
and ambition, marched away to the music of fife and drum, 
never to come back; widows, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, 
whose hearts are still mourning for their loved ones who wore 
the blue and did not return, or have since passed away; the 
surviving comrades of the fallen heroes, and others of that gen- 
eration, who cherish their memory, — all of these, as well as 
the children of the new generation, who have been taught to 
reverence the heroes of the War and to love the flag, — all of 
these throughout the land have again assembled, bearing 
flowers to do honor to the dead who fought for the Union. In 
the South, in those great, silent, houseless cities, where the 
graves of more than three hundred thousand of our comrades 
are kept green by the nation's care, vast numbers of that race 
of lowly blacks, who were slaves and are now free, have to-day, 
as they have on every Memorial Day, brought their offerings 
of sweet flowers, — universal tokens of admiration, devotion, 
love, — and, bending over the graves of those who died for the 
republic and for liberty, especially over those mounds marked 
only by that single, sad word, "Unknown," these simple- 
minded, grateful people have again, as they ever have on this 



296 HON. HENRY C. DIBBLE. 

anniversary, lifted up their voices and their hearts in holy 
prayer for their soldier friends and benefactors, and for that 
immortal liberator whom they revere and all but deify, whose 
edict struck the shackles from their limbs, whose martyrdom 
made them citizens of the republic. So, too, my comrades, 
our minds to-day are filled with holy but tender thoughts, as 
we recall the memory of that great man, who, though invested 
with vast civil and military power, was yet our gentle and 
sympathizing friend. Alas! alas! comrades, the shadow of 
the deep sorrow that fell upon the land when Lincoln was as- 
sassinated still rests upon our hearts! 

Albeit, on Memorial Day our reflections are not, and should 
not be, altogether sad. True, the ceremony of decorating the 
graves of our dead heroes naturally superinduces a solemn 
and sorrowful vein of thought. But having performed that 
sweet-sad duty, and having met for these subsequent exer- 
cises, our thoughts change and expand as we recall the 
achievements of the Union army and navy and contemplate 
the results of the War; our emotions pass from sorrow to pa- 
triotic pride and loyal exaltation. How the pulsations of our 
hearts quicken as we remember the uprising of the loyal North 
when the news was received that the flag had been fired upon 
at Sumter! Ah! the stirring days, the heroic deeds, the terri- 
ble years, that followed; in imagination we review the whole 
panorama of the mighty struggle. Our spirits rise and fall as 
we again note the incidents of victory or defeat. Once more 
we exult over the downfall of the Rebellion and the final tri- 
umph of the Union cause. Then, how naturally on this day 
do our thoughts and hearts turn to those heroes who led that 
victorious army of American volunteers. Why should we not 
be proud and exultant when we remember that chief among 
them was the purest, the wisest, and the greatest soldier of the 
age,; — our illustrious commander, Grant. But our thoughts 
still expand, our spirits rise still higher, as we dwell upon the 
future grandeur of the republic which was saved by the tri- 
umph of the Union army. Inspired by such thoughts, by 
such memories, by such emotions, we again renew our loyal 
devotion to the Union and to that glorious flag, speaking of 
which an eminent citizen of the republic has said: "Beautiful 



LOYALTY TO THE NATION. 297 

as a flower to those who love it, terrible as a meteor to those 
who fear or hate it, it is the symbol of the power, and glory, 
and honor of more than seventy millions of Americans!" 

Nine and twenty years ago the Grand Army of the Republic 
instituted this memorial anniversary. It was first popularly 
called "Decoration Day," which indicated the original scope and 
design of the memorial exercises to which the comrades were 
called by orders. They responded to those orders with alac- 
rity, but — and this was perhaps unexpected — the great mass 
of the people of the states that were not in the Rebellion, and 
many loyal people in the South (including all the blacks), 
likewise responded and immediately adopted the day with en- 
thusiasm. From year to year the Grand Army continued to 
observe the anniversary; the people participated, also, and it 
soon became a fixed holiday. The simple memorial cere- 
monies expanded, and we of the Grand Army found that we 
had builded wiser than we knew. We began by decorating 
the graves of our fallen comrades; the people, accepting the 
day, instituted a festival to exalt the virtue of loyalty for 
which they died. So it is that the occasion is pre-eminently 
a national holiday. It is characterized by a total absence of 
the features and influences of partisan politics. The promi- 
nent, absorbing sentiment of the day is loyalty to the nation, 
— a sentiment that naturally inspires gratitude to the loyal 
defenders of the Union whose graves we annually visit. 

Since, then, the celebration of Memorial Day has come to be 
a festival to loyalty, it would seem to be suitable to the oc- 
casion that I should attempt to analyze that virtue. 

Loyalty in a republic is the idealization and the highest ex- 
emplification of patriotism. Patriotism is the manifestation 
of that natural love of country and race which cements society 
and inspires fraternity. Patriotism and loyalty are the noblest 
sentiments and most exalted virtues developed by man in 
association with his fellow-men. 

In the divine economy the natural state of mankind is in 
the social and political relation. Humanity has never existed 
in any other condition. Families, tribes, communities, com- 
monwealths or states, nations, — such is the order of evolu- 
tion. The social group, the family, not the individual, is the 



298 HON. HENRY C. DIBBLE. 

unit or cell;. the nation is the ultimate product. It is a law 
of the universe that growth by and through the aggregation of 
units or cells superinduces organic life. Nations are formed 
by this process; they become organic beings and manifest or- 
ganic life; they develop definite tendencies and purposes, are 
gifted with super-intelligence, and become instinct with an in- 
tense and conscious love of life. 

The nation, thus evolved by the spiritual and material laws 
of the universe, is the highest product of spirit and matter,— 
an organic body with organic life, whose component atoms are 
children of the eternal God. 

The earth belongs to humanity, and humanity clings to the 
earth. In all the stages of social and political progress, the 
family, the tribe, the community, the commonwealth or state, 
the nation, each has some place of abode on the face of the 
globe, which is home, or fatherland. Love of country grows 
and expands with the evolution and progress of mankind in 
the social and political order; whence we have the genesis of 
patriotism. 

The highest manifestations of organic national life is the 
evolved consciousness of the nation that it is a nation, and 
that, as a nation, it exists in God's economy for some great 
historic purpose. To each citizen, then, the nation becomes 
idealized and exalted. Its noble image fills his soul with ad- 
miration, affection, fealty, devotion. This is loyalty. 

There may be those who think that the sentiment of loyalty 
has no proper place in a republic; that it belongs rather to 
monarchical governments, and is simply the devotion that leal 
subjects owe and show to a sovereign. Indeed, such was the 
significance of the word "loyalty" in the past. But millions 
of English-speaking freemen on this continent have claimed 
the right to give a new meaning to an English word. The 
terms "loyal" and "loyalty" now belong to our American 
language, — are to be found in our American lexicon of free- 
dom. We have given the word "loyalty" a new, a broader, a 
grander, a nobler significance. The nation is our sovereign. 
We are loyal to the nation. Loyalty means fealty to the re- 
public; it means the pledge of our lives that our " government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not per- 






LOYALTY TO THE NATION. 299 

ish from the earth"; it means devotion to that glorious em- 
blem of the nation's might, upon whose brightly striped and 
star-lit folds is written the prophetic legend of Bishop Berke- 
ley, which has burned like a star of promise through the cen- 
tury:— 

" Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 
The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; 
Time's noblest offspring is the last." 

Until the period of our Civil War, loyalty, according to this 
analysis, was an unknown virtue in America. Why? Be- 
cause, as I have shown, loyalty is manifested in a republic by 
devotion to the nation, and until the Civil War, this nation, 
in a higher sense, did not exist. It had not been evolved. As 
yet it had no organic being, no organic life. 

The success of the war which our forefathers waged with 
England's King for the independence of the colonies did not 
create a nation. That was a glorious struggle in the cause of 
freedom, — a heroic contest for the rights of man, — and it may 
be said that the seeds were then sown from which the nation 
ultimately sprang. But the colonies, having achieved their in- 
dependence, were still a mere group of communities and com- 
monwealths lightly bound together; the nation was not yet. 

The adoption of the Federal constitution, though the delib- 
erate and well-considered act of the patriot statesmen who 
were seeking to found a republic based upon the principle of 
self-government, did not establish the nation. The result was 
to merely set up the framework of a Federal system. Nations 
are not, cannot be, created by revolutions or by pronuncia- 
mientos, or by paper constitutions; since the nation is a living, 
moral organism, it must be born and grow. 

With the organization of the government of the Federal re- 
public began that sectional conflict of ideas and interests 
which ultimately precipitated the Civil War. The South, 
with one type of civilization, and with slavery as a funda- 
mental social system, contended with the North, representing 
another type, and opposed to slavery. Whilst the contention 
continued, the evolution of the nation was suspended, and 
loyalty was still an unknown virtue. 



300 HON. HENEY C. DIBBLE. 

I do not mean to say that the American people were not 
patriotic. They were. They loved their country, and were 
proud of it. They were ready and willing to fight and to die 
for it. Indeed, the patriotism of Americans was so striking 
and vainglorious as to be amusing. It was so characterized 
by the poet Halleck in the lines, — 

" They love their land, because it is their own, 
And scorn to give aught other reason why ; 
Would shake hands with a king upon his throne, 
And think it kindness to his majesty ! " 

But loyalty is something more than love of native land, 
something more than admiration for the institutions of the 
country, something more than fraternal affection for country- 
men; loyalty is a passionate adoration of the nation as a 
moral, self-conscious, organic being, — a passionate devotion 
to the historic destiny of the nation. 

In God's good time the American nation was to be born. 
The conflict of ideas and of interests between the South and 
the North, the impending struggle between the advocates of 
slavery and the friends of freedom, the fierce intellectual con- 
test over the form of the government, — whether the state or 
the Union was paramount, — ultimately culminated in the 
Civil War. The first shot was fired upon the flag at Sumter, 
and, marvel of historical marvels! the new-born nation sprang, 
— as in ancient mythology Minerva is said to have sprung 
full-panoplied from the head of Jove, — the nation sprang full- 
armed into life! 

From that day forward, loyalty became a living, political 
virtue in the republic. 

In all history there is nothing grander than the story of the 
uprising of the American nation. Ah! how well do we who 
survive remember the stirring and exciting scenes in the cities, 
towns, and villages of the North during those heroic days of 
the spring and early summer of '61. In response to the first 
call of Lincoln for five and seventy thousand volunteers, half 
a million patriots offered themselves at once to march to bat- 
tle, while the emblem of the republic, symbol now of the new- 
born nation, yon starry flag, was flung to the breeze on every 






LOYALTY TO THE NATION. 301 

hand; aye, in many places, Christian ministers, aided by loyal 
women, hoisted it to the church steeples! 

Oh! what a glorious sight, and what a lesson to the world, 
was the formation of the great volunteer army that resulted 
from this uprising of the people, now inspired by a burning 
passion of loyalty to the nation! There were no hereditary 
princes or dukes, no ready-made military heroes, to marshal 
those who flew to arms. Yet, heroes and mighty captains 
were found to lead and command. The loyal sons of a free 
republic, when called to arms by the voice of the nation, find 
their own heroes and commanders in their own ranks, among 
those who show the greatest devotion, courage, prowess, and 
genius. So it was that the Union army gave distinction to a 
score of illustrious generals, and gave immortality to the fame 
of Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan. Those who became com- 
manders of the Union forces were not selected by royal favor, 
nor even by the government of the republic. Their enthusias- 
tic and devoted comrades marched with them to victory after 
victory and crowned them with laurel. Thus chosen, they 
were commissioned to higher commands by President Lincoln, 
who was the military head of the nation, but who, remember- 
ing that he himself was the people's choice, recognized and en- 
forced the suffrages of the volunteer army. Comrades, in this 
sense and connection, it is our inestimable privilege to remem- 
ber that among our comrades in arms were the illustrious gen- 
erals to whom I have referred, and also our constitutional 
commander-in-chief, the immortal Lincoln. 

The War, with its sorrows and its glories, passed by. The 
Rebellion was overthrown. The curse of slavery was swept 
away. Then the great liberator fell by the assassin's hand, 
and he who had been ridiculed and contemned and scorned 
by enemies of the republic at home and abroad, received un- 
stinted praise and honor from all mankind. The mighty vol- 
unteer army, to the surprise of the world, was disbanded in a 
day, without danger or even friction, the soldiers returning to 
the pursuits of peace, to soon reappear in our great civic-mili- 
tary organization, the Grand Army of the Republic, — an or- 
ganization pledged to uphold the constitution and the laws, 
and devoted to the inculcation of loyalty and civic virtue. 



I 



302 HON. HENRY C. DIBBLE. 

The states were rehabilitated, the nation was further consoli- 
dated, and the republic was at length firmly established upon 
the enduring basis of universal freedom and equal rights, and 
is now, and henceforth will be, sustained by the loyalty of its 
citizens. 

Comrades, it was our privilege to live through the greatest 
epoch in the history of our beloved country. I question some- 
times whether this generation, or even we ourselves, can fully 
appreciate the importance, the magnitude, of the results which 
were secured by the triumph of the Union army. Perhaps 
this might be made plainer by considering the consequences 
that would have followed from our defeat. To-day the repub- 
lic is one of the first nations of the world. Had the Confed- 
eracy prevailed, the Union would have been dismembered, the 
separate parts would have been despised by the nations, and 
the chains would have been more firmly riveted upon four 
million slaves and their descendants, to the eternal disgrace 
of the very name of America. Nay, more: the progress of 
civilization would have been set back for countless years. 
The question of the capacity of the people to maintain a rep- 
resentative government, as well as the cause of human free- 
dom, was on trial. The overthrow of the American republic 
by the Southern slaveholders and their forces would have dis- 
heartened humanity, and would have checked the development 
of constitutional government throughout the earth. 

But, my countrymen, we thank God to-day that it was 
not to be so; we thank God that our free institutions per- 
mitted, and that loyalty inspired, the formation of the invin- 
cible volunteer army of which our noble organization, com- 
rades, is the remnant; we thank God for the silent man of 
genius who led that army to victory; who, although he com- 
manded a mighty host of men, did nothing to imperil freedom 
— we thank God for Grant ! Above all, we thank God for hav- 
ing raised up from among the lowly a man whose heart-sym- 
pathies and mental training fitted him to become the liberator 
of the enslaved, and the savior of the republic — the whole 
world has so distinguished and crowned Abraham Lincoln. 

The old adage that republics are ungrateful has found a 
refutation among the loyal masses of the American republic. 



LOYALTY TO THE NATION. 303 

The manner in which Memorial Day is celebrated shows that 
the people have not forgotten the soldiers who bore arms 
under the Stars and Stripes; who followed that glorious flag 
over the mountains of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and 
along the valleys and rivers into the South; who were with 
Grant at Fort Donelson, at Shiloh, at Vicksburg, at Chatta- 
nooga, in the Wilderness, and at Appomattox; with Sherman 
at Resaca, at Atlanta, and on the march through Georgia to the 
sea; with Sheridan at Missionary Ridge, in the Shenandoah 
Valley, and around Richmond; with Thomas at the crisis of 
Chickamauga and in the fierce fire at Nashville; with Meade 
and Hancock on the historic field of Gettysburg. Nor have 
they forgotten the men of the loyal navy, who bore the flag 
along the stretching shores of the Atlantic and the Gulf, and 
over the seas; on the Mississippi to New Orleans, at Fort 
Henry and Island No. 10; or who were at Mobile with Admiral 
Farragut. No! my comrades and friends, the loyal men and 
women of America are not ungrateful, and they will never for- 
get the patriot volunteers of the army and navy, who, on the 
water and on the land, carried Old Glory to victory; who, in 
the providence of God, saved the Union, gave it a new lease of 
life as a nation, and set the republic again on the high road to 
future unparalleled grandeur and glory. 

Comrades and fellow-citizens, my duty for this occasion is 
nearly performed. I have aimed to quicken your hearts and 
minds to a higher appreciation of the noble virtue of loyalty, 
which inspired the patriot heroes whom we commemorate to- 
day, and to direct your thoughts to the glorious future of the 
nation. A word more, and I have done. While we of the 
Grand Army do, and ever will, insist that in the great strug- 
gle which gave occasion for this national Memorial Day, our 
cause — the cause of the Union and of liberty — was eternally 
just and right, yet we have no words of bitterness for those 
against whom we fought. They are our countrymen. We are 
now a united people. The republic, great in the extent of its 
domain and in the vastness of its productive power; invin- 
cibly great in its possession of seventy millions of freemen and 
in its mighty military possibilities; incomparably great in the 
degree of constitutional liberty which it exemplifies and in the 



304 HON. HENRY C. DIBBLE. 

wisdom and beneficence of its laws, — this, the greatest, the 
grandest republic of all time, is now grounded as upon ada- 
mant, and all the powers of darkness in the world shall not 
prevail against it. There is no longer any serious contention 
in the land that the Union is a mere federation of states or 
commonwealths. The thoughtful men of the South at length 
recognize the fact that the American people are now a nation, 
which, in the divine economy, as I have urged, is the highest 
form of organic life on earth. 

Yes, my comrades, my countrymen, this is a nation; a na- 
tion conscious of its own existence, conscious of its power, 
conscious of its destiny; a nation without fear and without re- 
proach; a nation instinct with the moral courage of its convic- 
tions; a nation that will henceforth live through the ages, in 
God's providence, for the betterment of mankind; a nation 
whose emblem is yonder star-spangled banner that floats, now 
and for aye, from the frost-bound lakes of the north to the 
sun-kissed shores of the Gulf, from the storm-beaten line of 
the Atlantic to the golden shores of the Pacific, and over our 
new possessions in the Antilles and in the islands of the West- 
ern Ocean. Symbol of the power and majesty of the republic I 
symbol of patriotic, loyal, heroic devotion to the living nation I 
symbol of universal freedom! symbol of the uplifting of hu- 
manity! dear, inexpressibly dear, to our hearts! beautiful, 
transcendently beautiful, to our eyes ! thou shalt wave and 
wave, O flag of the free, as long as the flowers of the earth 
bloom and the billows of the ocean roll ! Thou shalt wave on 
high, Old Glory, in all thy brilliant, symbolic splendor, and 
whatever betide the world, thou shalt never, thou shalt never 
go down! 



REV. DR. E. E. BAKER. 

The Rev. E. E. Baker, D. D., was born at Hughesville, Pennsylva- 
nia, April 11, 1862 ; went to Ohio in 1880, where he graduated from Wit- 
tenberg College in 1884, the valedictorian of his class ; received from 
his alma mater the degrees of A. M. and B. D. in 1887, and the degree of 
D. D. from Heidelberg in 1902. Dr. Baker has held pastorates in Day- 
ton, Ohio (12 years), in Cleveland, Ohio (2 years), and has been pastor 
of the First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, California, since April, 
1901. He was a speaker at the international Christian Endeavor con- 
vention in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1894; supplied King's Weigh House 
Chapel, London, England, in 1897 and 1899; and has made several 
trips to Europe in his summer vacations. He has been orator at Me- 
morial Day and Fourth of July proceedings at Oakland and Cleveland ; 
has made commencement addresses and delivered baccalaureate ser- 
mons, and been special preacher at Sunday school and Young Men's 
Christian Association conventions, and at colleges and universities. 

PUBLIC OPINION: ITS GENESIS, GROWTH, AND 
VALUE. WITH AN INCIDENTAL DISCUSSION 
OF FASHION. 

[Delivered at the annual dinner of the Starr King Fraternity, at the 
Unitarian Church, Oakland, May 3, 1901.] 

The presence of the ladies to-night is a graceful compli- 
ment which I greatly appreciate and hereby gratefully ac- 
knowledge. As I have had frequent occasion to say, " I like 
men. It goes without saying, that I like women. All men 
do." 

In expressing the hope that they may not only be interested 
in the incidental discussion of fashion, but also in the larger 
theme before us, I am supported by the fact that Thomas 
Morton, in his comedy, Speed the Plough, personifies public 
opinion as a woman. 

"What will Mrs. Grundy say?" 

In this familiar inquiry there is a recognition of more than 
woman's ability to talk. The rise of public opinion is here 

305 



I 



306 



REV. DR. BAKER. 



indicated. It is born of neighborhood, and is at first purely 
local. Mrs. Grundy and Mrs. Ashfield are only farmers' 
wives. They are also rivals. In the narrow life of the coun- 
try and its petty competitions, public opinion originates. 

Mrs. Grundy thinks, and freely speaks her mind about things 
personal and public. Mrs. Ashfield knows that whatever she 
does, the inevitable opinion of her garrulous neighbor will be 
pronounced upon it; hence she hesitates, out of deference akin 
to fear, and finally does what will occasion the least possible 
comment. In this way conventional propriety and morality 
have grown up. 

The next step in the process of tracing the origin of public 
sentiment is to go from the individual mind to what is called 
"the public mind." Mrs. Grundy disappears to give place to 
General Grundy. He represents the thinking of the commu- 
nity. Public opinion is defined as "the prevailing view, in a 
given community, on any matter of general interest or con- 
cern." 

A similar definition is given by Mr. Bryce: "Public opinion 
is the aggregate of the majority of individual opinions, and 
has become the sole basis of social order, and hence the bind- 
ing force in modern society in which the majority of people 
think and believe." 

Individuals think and form opinions for themselves. The 
accord of individual opinions constitutes public opinion. The 
ways by which the real feeling of a nation become articulate 
are to be studied later. Just now I am contending that there 
is a public mind, though I admit the phrase is vague. So 
vague is the idea it stands for, that Bulwer-Lytton character- 
izes it as a "phantom" and likens it to "a ghost," when he 
says, in My Novel, "a man's own conscience is his sole tribu- 
nal, and he should care no more for that phantom 'opinion' 
than he should fear meeting a ghost if he crossed a church- 
yard at dark." 

So Sir Robert Peel, in a letter written in 1820, seemed to 
feel, at the same time admitting the growing power of public 
opinion. He said: "Do you not think that the tone of Eng- 
land, of that great compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, 
wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, or newspaper para- 



PUBLIC OPINION. 307 

graphs, which is called public opinion, is more liberal — to 
use an odious but intelligible phrase — than the policy of the 
government?" 

The difficulty consists in locating the popular mind. It is; 
but where is it? According to Spencer and other students of 
social science, the give and take of social life result in the 
forming of a certain typical or average group of convictions 
and feelings in every individual, — at least, in the majority of 
individuals. This common element, which is in the nature of 
a consensus of opinion, is what is meant by "the public mind." 
Quod ubique, semper, ad omnibus. Monsieur Gustave Le Bon, 
in his very interesting and valuable treatise on The Crowd: A 
Study of the Popular Mind, coins a phrase — "the collective 
mind" — which throws light upon this part of our subject. 
In the chapter on "The Mind of Crowds," he says (speaking 
from the psychological point of view): "The sentiments and 
ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the 
same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A 
collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory, but presenting 
very clearly defined characteristics. The gathering has be- 
come what, in the absence of a better expression, I will call an 
organized crowd, or, if the term is considered preferable, a psy- 
chological crowd. It forms a single being, and is subjected to 
the law of the mental unity of crowds." The mere accident of 
aggregation in close proximity does not account for this phe- 
nomenon. He says, in another place: "Thousands of isolated 
individuals may acquire at certain moments, and under the 
influence of certain violent emotions, — such, for example, as a 
great national event, — the characteristics of a psychological 
crowd." Whether we accept Spencer's theory of the average 
or Le Bon's theory of the collective mind, we are compelled to 
admit that predominant public sentiment takes the form of 
public opinion, and finds expression in many different ways. 
A recent example could be cited in the case of the last Presi- 
dential election, when public opinion seemed to take the form 
of Republican opinion. 

In the light of this contention, the relation of the individual 
to society becomes apparent. The most of life and thought is 
held in common. A general type constitutes humanity. Man, 



308 



REV. DR. BAKER. 



the individual, is only a slight variation from the genus. It fol- 
lows that we are much more alike than we are different. By- 
noticing the personal peculiarities of each because they are 
more interesting, we accentuate the personal equation. The 
solidarity of the race is coming to be emphasized, and less and 
less will men seek to live to themselves alone. He who seeks 
to wrap himself in the solitude of his own originality will be 
seen to have committed that social suicide which comes inevi- 
tably from isolation. Unlike Lord Dundreary, man cannot 
successfully "flock by himself." He is a social animal, and, 
like Dr. Johnson, must constantly keep his friendship in re- 
pair. In fact, pushed to the extreme, it is a token of insanity 
to oppose individual judgment to the judgment of mankind. 
This is illustrated in the case of a man in a hospital for the 
insane, who, when asked why he was there, said, "I thought 
other men mad. They thought me mad. They were the 
stronger. So I am here." 

The growth of public opinion is the one significant fact of 
modern times. Always powerful in local and national affairs, 
it is now the determining factor in the government of the civil- 
ized world. How has it become "world-opinion" in these 
days? and shall we go on to its apotheosis? 

Historians tell us that it came into the world since the Mid- 
dle Ages. Before the French Revolution it was hardly known 
in Europe. Louis XIV. boasted that he was the state. Which 
is to say, his opinion was public opinion. Respect for a reign- 
ing family, belief in a certain form of religious worship, na- 
tional pride, and consequent hostility to foreigners, or com- 
mercial rivalry, were sources of authority until the present 
era. Public opinion has had increasing sway in America 
since the Revolutionary War. Previous to that event, leading 
men, clergymen, and large landholders held the reins of gov- 
ernment, and molded public sentiment. 

In short, the coming in of democracy, in the form of consti- 
tutional and representative governments, has given a mighty 
impetus to the spread of public opinion. The appeal is now 
made to the people, and the expression of their thought is 
wellnigh omnipotent in modern politics. The ease with which 
the common thought can be translated into common action 



PUBLIC OPINION. 309 

also puts a premium upon the power of the masses. Accord- 
ing to Lincoln, "Our government rests in public opinion. 
Whoever can change public opinion can change the govern- 
ment practically just so much." Wendell Phillips, the agita- 
tor, in his famous lecture on Public Opinion, glories in the new 
era. "The age of bullets is over," he says. "The age of men 
armed in mail is over. The age of thrones has gone by. The 
age of statesmen — God be praised! such statesmen [referring 
to Daniel Webster] — is over. The age of thinking men has 
come. The age of reading men has come. The age of the 
masses has come." 

Under the old regime, when aristocracy prevailed in one 
form or another, political sentiment emanated from persons 
possessed of property, and presumably, therefore, possessed of 
intelligence and extraordinary influence. Under the present 
order of democracy (in the wide sense of that term), it arises 
from a majority of the adult males, and theoretically seeks the 
greatest good of the greatest number. 

An additional explanation of the rapid spread of public 
opinion over world-areas is found in increased facilities for 
communication. Woman, as an organ of communication 
more or less accurate, has never had the recognition she seems 
diligently to have sought. The three quickest modes of com- 
munication are said to be to telephone, to telegraph, and to 
tell a woman. 

The wonderful — almost miraculous — application of electri- 
city to purposes of communication over land and over seas, as 
well as under them; the splendid enterprise of the press in 
sending special correspondents to all parts of the globe; the 
organization of the news service, that regularly reports the 
gossip of the world, — these and other systems of regular cor- 
respondence have brought the ends of the earth together. The 
same ideas, being distributed simultaneously over civilization, 
achieve a social unity of the great nations, approximating the 
dream of the poet, who sees the " parliament of man, the fed- 
eration of the world." 

I have sought thus far to establish by evidence that public 
opinion is a vast, predominating, world-wide fact. My next 
endeavor is to indicate how expression is given to it. The 



310 REV. DR. BAKER. 

voices of public opinion are so many and so various, I can at 
best do but little more than enumerate them. 

Once leaders spoke, and the world waited to hear, and took 
their cue from the political or popular oracles of the day. 
Clay, Calhoun, and Webster enjoyed this privilege and pre- 
rogative. Then the President's message was devoured word 
by word by an eager and hungry public. Alas and alack! 
the day of Congressional speeches and official messages is 
practically over, judging by the attention they get and the 
influence they exert. Now, Presidents and legislators, high 
and low, strain their ears to catch the first sound of the popu- 
lar will, dumb oracles till they hear. 

Clubs like the one I have the honor to address to-night give 
safe and sane expression to the best and highest sentiment 
concerning things public, whether local or national. 

Women's clubs, literary, social, and sewing, each and all 
help to give articulation to the latest and newest bits of opin- 
ion. Right here it might be well to distinguish between opin- 
ion and knowledge. Opinion is one's view of a matter; what 
one thinks, as distinguished from what one knows to be true. 
Judges' opinions from the bench must be in this same cate- 
gory, being so often reversed. 

The platform, with the noble army of lecturers of whom the 
world is not worthy, echoes the popular mind, no longer seek- 
ing to reform existing conditions so much as to please the 
largest number at so much per capita. 

The pulpit, when moral considerations are involved, may be 
counted on to give no uncertain sound — especially after the 
pews have expressed themselves by lining up on one side of 
the question at issue. If the pulpit is decadent, as alleged by 
unfriendly critics, it is because the pews refused to listen to 
the truth, and demanded more palatable diet. Preachers have 
no monopoly of moral courage. They are very human, as I 
well know, and stand squarely on the fence most of the time, 
for purposes of self-preservation as well as outlook. On the 
latest systems of sewerage and drainage, and other approved 
methods of sanitation, they are fearlessly outspoken in these 
modern days, particularly in the large cities. Political, social, 
or commercial corruption is quite beneath their notice, com- 



PUBLIC OPINION. 311 

pared with tenements, clean streets, landscape-gardening, and 
other ennobling environment. 

Great conventions — state, national, and international — are 
clearing-houses for local and world-wide opinion. As such 
alone, they are worth their cost in time, talent, and treasure. 

Labor-unions, with their constant discussions of questions 
uppermost in public thought, contribute to the general distri- 
bution of ideas, that find a singularly fertile soil for germina- 
tion and growth. Free speech and free discussion, even of 
dangerous issues, make for the safety of the public. Great 
Britain has learned this, and the red flag of anarchy is per- 
mitted to appear on the streets of London, in Trafalgar 
Square and at Hyde Park, without let or hindrance. Surely, 
a professed democracy can do no less than to tolerate public 
and semi-private debate of burning questions of the day. In 
this sense our political campaigns are safety-valves that give 
vent to discontent, and postpone, if not prevent, revolutions. 

Elections register the verdict of the majority, and to that ex- 
tent voice public conviction. Occurring at intervals of from one 
to five years, they are not safe guides to permanent opinion, if 
taken alone. Expressing, usually, the sentiment of about half 
the voting population, and passing judgment on the general 
policy of the parties contending, they leave particular issues 
undetermined. The desire to know, in advance, the mind of 
the people on the political questions in debate, and the mani- 
fest difficulty of consulting modern democracy, have given rise 
to "the boss," whose evolution has been a necessary result of 
universal suffrage, coupled with a demand for news in antici- 
pation of election-day. Competing parties have demanded 
knowledge of the voters' intentions, and he who furnished it 
came naturally to have the power that knowledge always con- 
fers. With the power came the profit of its use and abuse. 
The boss can only be dethroned when an equally accurate 
source of information as to voters can be found to take his 
place. Under existing conditions, the only remedy is to alter- 
nate bosses. 

The bar, constituted as it is of learned men of independent 
income, may be relied upon to speak the right word at the 
right time for the public good. Whatever exceptions to this 



312 REV. DR. BAKER. 

rule there may be by way of individual cases, the legal frater- 
nity, as a whole, know and express public opinion; for are 
they not, as a rule, candidates for the highest offices in the 
gift of the people? 

The schools of higher and lower education are appreciating 
as exponents of the deeper and nobler aspirations of men. 
Some have even claimed, in recent days, that the world is 
turning to the teachers for light and leading, having thrown 
over the former authority of Church and Bible. I quote ex- 
President Harrison to the contrary. At the great Ecumenical 
Conference in New York City, he said, in the presence of more 
than ten thousand, "Oh, my friends, not to scholarship, not to 
invention, not to any of these notable and creditable develop- 
ments of our era, but to the Word of God, and the life of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, must we turn for deliverance and happi- 
ness." 

There remain two other means of expression of public 
opinion that I must mention, — fashion and the press. I take 
up the latter first, for it is the greatest of all, and completes 
the public side of popular sentiment, fashion having to do 
primarily with private and social life. 

The modern newspaper, thanks to the invention and practi- 
cal perfection of the printing-press and allied machines, stands 
without a rival as the organ of world-wide public opinion. As 
I have before indicated, the news systems like that of the 
Associated Press, the special and regular correspondents cov- 
ering the entire world, the wide interchange of matter by the 
plate system, make the press of to-day omnipotent in its field. 
I quote the phrase from Wendell Phillips, who says, " I swear 
allegiance to the omnipotence of the press." Mr. E. L. God- 
kin, himself a journalist of repute, writing in the Atlantic 
Monthly (January, 1898), avers that "newspapers do not make 
public opinion, as they utter opinions which the readers ap- 
prove." The effect of editorial-writing is small, though he 
concedes it would be immense if the press acted unanimously 
as a body. He further sees that the advertiser is "the bogie" 
now, rather than the reader. The former asks, "How many 
see the paper?" not, "How many agree with it?" Its chief 
mission is to report facts in the form of news. Then the gen- 



R PUBLIC OPINION. 313 

al reading public will form its own conclusion from the facts 
ported. Another writer once selected for his subject, "The 
thics of Journalism," and was informed by a fellow-journalist 
mat that reminded him of the famous chapter on snakes in 
Ireland. The late Charles A. Dana, dean of the college of 
American journalists, although he instructed his reporters "al- 
ways to stand by the Stars and Stripes," also said, "You've 
got to square this paper with God Almighty and the judgment- 
day every day you live, and that's the only way to edit a 
paper." An endowed press, perfectly independent of wrong 
influence and unworthy control, will be one of the first experi- 
ments of the twentieth century, if reports from New York are 
correct. 

Public opinion invades private life, and dictates the style of 
hats and bonnets, and gowns and cloaks, and other articles of 
male and female apparel unmentionable. This we men know 
to our cost, though I must admit I agree with Macaulay, "The 
most beautiful object in the world, it must be allowed, is a 
beautiful woman"; to which must be added, " — well-dressed." 
It is now alleged that a woman does not dress so much for the 
admiration of men as for the envy of other women. 

Manners change, also, as well as garments, under the un- 
written law of fashion. Literary tastes conform to the pre- 
vailing mode accidentally in vogue, through successful, if 
mendacious, advertising. Even the panaceas for human ills 
are in favor or* out of favor, as the case may be. No one takes 
the pills his mother gave him. They are out of date, and a 
sugar-coated variety supplants those of the bitter taste. 

Men are not so abjectly servile when fashion dictates, and 
retain a remnant of independence supposed to be manly. 
However, no man of my acquaintance would wear his wife's 
best bonnet down the public street to his office and return. 
Why not? Surely, the form and fashion and color of the 
headgear on a man's head is neither moral nor immoral. No 
question of ethics is involved, — just a plain case of cowardly 
deference to public opinion, that decrees that women shall 
wear bonnets or hats with feathers galore, while men, on the 
penalty of ostracism, must wear the conventional black felt or 
stiff hat. The facts of fashion may be explained by three laws, 



314 REV. DR. BAKER. 

Dr. Vincent tells us: First, the law of reverential imitation, 
by which followers or subordinates ingratiate themselves with 
the great; second, the law of competitive imitation, by means 
of which the many assert their equality with the few; and 
third, the law of innovation to assert a difference, by means of 
which the few leaders in society strive constantly to escape 
from the commonplace. Strange to say, students of social 
phenomena approve of fashion, and, while deprecating the 
extravagant excesses to which it runs sometimes, enumerate 
the following services it renders: The constant changes pre- 
vent society from becoming monomaniac; they discover special 
abilities; they make possible production on a large scale at low 
prices; they promote social unity and the consciousness of 
common interests. The moral is obvious: the more fashion- 
able you are, ladies and gentlemen, the better you serve the 
age in which you live. 

I have yet to apply the Ritschlian test of values to public 
opinion. What is its true office and function? 

Let me confess that when I began the study of this subject 
some months ago, I was inclined to discount the value of public 
opinion. It seemed so vague and uncertain a quantity, that I 
thought it overestimated in point of influence. The swinging 
of the pendulum of popular favor, now for and now against, 
a natural and inevitable expression of the mutable many, gave 
it the character of inconstancy. I have since come to see that 
there is a distinction to be made between "the public" and 
"the people." The public is that part of the people that is 
clamorous and rampant at any given time. These vociferous 
voices cause the seeming ebb and flow of the tide of the popu- 
lar will. Underneath the froth and foam that stir the surface 
there is a sober seriousness that can be counted on to carry 
causes to right conclusions. Lincoln's famous maxim applies 
here. Consciously or unconsciously, he derived it from Pliny 
the Younger, who said: "No man deceived all mankind, and 
all mankind has deceived no man." In modern form, the 
same thought is: " You can fool part of the people all the time, 
and all the people part of the time; but you cannot fool all the 
people all the time." An analysis of this famous dictum re- 
veals Lincoln's estimate of public opinion to be, — 1. That it 



PUBLIC OPINION. 315 

>rms slowly; 2. That it is to be clarified by prolonged dis- 

ission; and 3. That it is correct eventually. 

Wendell Phillips confirms this judgment. "I hail the 
ilmighty power of the tongue. The people never err. I do 
Lot mean this of any single verdict which the people of to-day 
lay record. In time, the selfishness of one class neutralizes 
the selfishness of another. The interests of one class clash 
against the interests of another; but in the great result the 
race always means right. The people always mean right, and 
in the end they will have the right." 

Nevertheless, we would not say that public opinion is infal- 
lible. Wendell Phillips himself agitated the question of aboli- 
tion when he was sadly in the minority, with intrenched pub- 
lic sentiment adverse to his reform. He would hardly have 
agreed with his later utterance then. Rather would he have 
agreed with the one who said, " Public opinion was infallible 
— infallibly wrong"; or would have asked the question pro- 
pounded by the Frenchman, Chamfort, "Combien de sots fautil 
pour f aire un public?" (How many fools are required to make 
a public?) The public mind must be enlightened to give sane 
decisions when appealed to as the ultimate arbiter. Educa- 
tion must be as wide and inclusive as citizenship without limi- 
tation to those who have the right of suffrage. Public discus- 
sion and debate must be encouraged for the training of the 
reasoning faculties. Pulpit, and platform, and press must 
seek to give such interpretation to the signs of the times, that 
the highest welfare of all may be conserved. Reform of ex- 
isting abuses should be countenanced and encouraged, that 
progress may be made and social conditions ameliorated, in 
the interest of universal justice and human brotherhood. 

On the other hand, there is danger of overestimating public 
opinion. It has become a shibboleth. It is a sort of oracle, a 
present deity. Its apotheosis seems to be at hand. This con- 
dition gives occasion and opportunity to the demagogue. The 
latter knows that the masses are swayed by passion, rather 
than by principle; by instinct, rather than by intelligence; by 
concupiscence, rather than by conscience. He appeals, there- 
fore, to their prejudices, with the view to making them means 
to his own selfish ends. It is asserted that the whole demo- 



316 REV. DR. BAKER. 

cratic movement is hostile to superiority; that it is impossible 
for mediocrity to appreciate high gifts; and that mediocrity is, 
and must ever be, the lot of the masses. Pandering to public 
opinion on its weaker side encourages the demagogue and dis- 
courages the true statesman, who ever seeks to raise popular 
conviction to the high plane on which he conceives the na- 
tional character. 

An additional danger is the practical submerging of the in- 
dividual in the mass. John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty, de- 
clares "that the modern regime of public opinion is in an un- 
organized form what the Chinese educational and political 
systems are in an organized"; and predicts that "unless indi- 
viduality shall be able to assert itself successfully against this 
yoke, Europe, notwithstanding its noble antecedents and its 
professed Christianity, will tend to become another China." 

The effect on personal character of exaggerating the world's 
opinion to undue proportions is most deleterious. Most peo- 
ple live in a vague atmosphere of dread of the world and of 
what the world is saying of them. They are cowed into abject 
submission to the opinions of "Mrs. Grundy." They are al- 
ways thinking what people will say. "The tyranny of the 
world-opinion is a tyranny infinitely more subtle and farther 
reaching than that of the Inquisition in its worst days; one 
which passes its sentences, though no one knows who are the 
judges that pronounce them." This low and wretched condi- 
tion is aptly described in the following lines by an unknown 
author: — 

" While you, you think 

What others think, or what you think they '11 say ; 

Shaping your course by something scarce more tangible 

Than dreams, at best the shadows on the stream 

Of aspen trees by nickering breezes swayed. 

Load me with irons, drive me from morn till night, 

I am not the utter slave which that man is 

Whose sole thought, word, and deed are built on what 

The world may say of him." 

Carlyle adds his warning voice by way of protest: " Wonder- 
ful force of public opinion! We must walk as it prescribes, - 
follow the traffic it bids us, realize the sum of money, the de- 
gree of influence, it expects of us, — or we shall be but lightly 



PUBLIC OPINION. 317 

esteemed. Certain mouthfuls of articulate wind will be blown 
at us, and this what mortal could confront?" 

Another danger arises from the prevailing utilitarianism, 
which seeks the practical rather than the ideal. Ancient au- 
thorities in religion or morals are no longer in control. In 
fact, authority and experience are ruled out of modern life. 
All questions are "open" and large, which is to say, "unset- 
tled." Public opinion is therefore molded as never before by 
economic, rather than by religious, or moral, or even political, 
considerations. The distribution of commodities occupies pub- 
lic attention and forms public opinion. 

The only remedy for this state of affairs is to hark back to 
the ideal office and function of public opinion. Public opin- 
ion ought to be the public conscience. What the conscience is 
to the individual, that public opinion ought to be to the state. 
For the state is an ethical organism. It is also a tumult of 
conflicting interests, of warring passions, of individuals and 
classes necessarily pitted against one another for existence. 
Hence discontent with existing institutions and desire for in- 
novations constantly arise. Such desire and discontent find 
expression in representations which are not accurate, not 
faithfully descriptive, but distorted by selfishness, by fear, by 
hope, by hatred. They are debated in various ways, in order 
that in the event " from discussion's lips may fall the law." 
It is the public conscience that should dictate that law. But 
conscience is the voice of the whole — of the moral sense of the 
social organism, which, like the individual, consists in reason, 
of which right is the bond, and the life, and the light. 

This is the higher meaning, the true ideal, of public opinion. 
It should be the expression of the national conscience. In 
this sense, and in this sense alone, we may assent to the dic- 
tum, Vox populi vox Dei, — the voice of the people is the voice 
I of God. 



318 REV. DR. BAKER. 



RELIGION AND THE NATION. 

[Sermon delivered at union service at the First Methodist Episcopal 
Church, Oakland, November, 1901, from the text Acts xiv. 17: "God 
left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain 
from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and glad- 
ness."] 

The nineteenth century began with an enthusiasm for na- 
ture. As a result of scientific investigation, we have new ap- 
prehension of the immanence of God. Astronomers have 
swept the heavens with their telescopes, only to find God. 
Geologists have scanned the broken rocks, only to find God. 
Chemists have made careful experiment in laboratory, only to 
find God. 

The Church of the Middle Ages asserted that God was the 
peculiar possession of cathedral and monastery. Now we 
know that God is everywhere witnessing to Himself in nature. 
Natural law is only the way of God's usual working, and re- 
veals him as truly, if not as thoroughly, as sacred literature. 
Because some scientists deify the law, instead of the God, of 
nature, we do not need to stop with them at the altar erected 
to an impersonal god called "power," or "the absolute," or 
"the great first cause." We can go through nature to God, 
and rejoice in his goodness as manifested in rain and sunshine 
and recurring seasons with fruitful harvests. 

The twentieth century begins with an enthusiasm for hu- 
manity, — just as if human nature were not a part of nature, 
— and the best part. God witnesses to Himself in man. I do 
not hold, with many called Christian, that man is the child of 
the devil. On the contrary, I believe that this is God's world, 
and that it is good, and that man is the child of God, and that 
there is a divinity within which answers to the divinity with- 
out, so that there is correspondence between God and man, 
which is religion. Emerson said, years ago, "The defect of 
our education and religion is, that we have ignored the sacred- 
ness of man." 



RELIGION AND THE NATION. 319 

God witnesses to Himself in human history. I am old- 
fashioned enough to believe in Providence. A world-wide 
view of the nation's past and present compels the acknowl- 
edgment that there is an overruling Power that makes for 
righteousness. This is manifestly true of America. The 
foundations of our government were laid in faith and reverent 
dependence upon God. As Mrs. Hemans says in her " Pilgrim 
Fathers," — 

" What sought they thus afar? — 
Bright jewels of the mine? 
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? — 
They sought a faith's pure shrine ! 

" Ay, call it holy ground, 

The soil where first they trod. 
They have left unstained what there they found, — 
Freedom to worship God." 

We each and all rejoice in the separation of church and 
state. It is this very freedom of worship that makes it pos- 
sible for religion to infuse into the nation such high ideals as 
to make a Christian civilization ultimately possible. 

Hegel, in his Philosophy of History, attributes the idea of 
freedom to religion. He shows that the Orientals had no con- 
ception of liberty. At the best, only one was free, to the East- 
ern mind, and he the despotic ruler. The Grecians and 
Romans advanced to the thought that only some were free, for 
slavery existed, and was to be perpetuated in the ideal repub- 
lic of Plato. Hegel concludes by showing that the German 
peoples, under the inspiration of Christianity, came to the true 
\ conception of all being free; that the teaching of Christ led to 
the conclusion that man, as man, was free. Upon this sure 
1 foundation of human liberty we have constructed a political 
fabric that shall endure as long as time, if we maintain our 
national ideals of civil and religious liberty. 

My plea this morning is for a Christianity that includes all 
the functions of national life, as well as the narrower round of 
personal duty. For example, we need to Christianize the 
money power. Commerce cannot safely remain pagan forever. 
We are a young nation. England goes back a thousand years 
to Alfred. France goes back more than a thousand years to 



320 REV. DR. BAKER. 

Charlemagne. The Franks laid the foundations of the Father- 
land more than fourteen hundred years ago. China has an 
unbroken record of four thousand years of existence; and six 
thousand years have elapsed since the first Pharaoh ascended 
his throne in Egypt. By the standard of years, we are very 
young. But by the standard of achievement and progress we 
are as old as the oldest, for we have, under the hand of God, 
wrought miracles in commerce and manufacture, in education 
and religion. Shall we give the world a Christian civilization? 
The Slavonic peoples say, " The Anglo-Saxons have done their 
best, and their best is a commercial civilization." It is not 
too late for us to lay the hand of consecration on business and 
commerce and manufactures, and spiritualize them, so that 
the secular may become sacred. 

I also contend for Christian politics. Senator Ingalls said 
there was "no place for the Ten Commandments in practical 
politics, and that to think so was an iridescent dream." He 
knows better now, for he is dead. Better learn that ethics and 
religion have weight in politics before we die. The Grand Old 
Man of England said, "What is morally wrong cannot be 
politically right"; and our own Lincoln, one of the greatest, if 
not the very greatest, man America has as yet produced, said, 
"Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith 
let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." 
My own confidence is, that the President who now sits in the 
chair in Washington is of the same spiritual type. In theory 
and in practice, Mr. Roosevelt -puts merit above policy and 
duty above party. And we never can correct party evils till 
we refuse to be whipped into line for our party when it is 
wrong. Independent political action, especially in municipal 
affairs, will secure the righteous rule of right men for right 
public ends. 

Mention was made, in the prayer, of "foolish optimism." 
We dare not shut our eyes to the manifest dangers that 
threaten our national life. Henry Norman, the English cor- 
respondent, says our greatest danger is " acquiescence in the 
things we loathe." To believe that some evils are necessary 
and inevitable is to stay the advance of reform. If God is at 
hand and omnipotent, as we believe, then there are no evils 



RELIGION AND THE NATION. 321 

that cannot be overthrown. The saloon, as a public insti- 
tution, waits on our united action for its final and complete 
overthrow. We loathe it, and as yet we acquiesce in it. It is 
an illegal institution, so pronounced by the United States 
supreme court, and will go when we have the courage and 
conviction to say the word. 

President Draper of the University of Illinois said, in my 
hearing, once, "The recovery of law is the task of the twentieth 
century." Reverence for law, as such, is seemingly dying out, 
in our cities especially. Witness the riots incident upon the 
strikes that so seriously stay our progress. The lynchings in 
the South and West are poor substitutes for formal and 
orderly justice. The disregard of statutory liabilities on the 
part of corporations is of the same sort of lawlessness. Surely, 
we can contend for the even and exact administration of jus- 
tice, and should set ourselves against any abrogation of law, 
either by individual, or mob, or corporation. 

In a republic the power of public opinion is wellnigh su- 
preme. We can help to correct it when wrong, and to control 
it when right. It is formed by the aggregate of individual 
opinions, either by way of average or by consensus. At its 
best, it is the voice of the national conscience, and we can con- 
tribute to its volume and power by being thoughtful of current 
events and conscientious in our convictions. There is con- 
science enough in the air; what we need is to get it down out 
of the clouds and crystallize it into some concrete form of 
action. 

For myself, I am optimistic of the future and believe in the 
destiny of our country. Three things determine my personal 
programme. 

First. Faith in the God of truth. All truth is one. God 
is one. At last, God is identified with the truth. The Church 
is the temple of the truth. We worship at an altar bearing an 
inscription, "To the God of truth." So I welcome all dis- 
covery, and fear no result of criticism, and am persuaded the 
best is yet to be. This is the best hour, and day, and year, 
and century, and country, God ever gave to mankind. What 
more do we want? 

Second. Hope for the coming centuries. Progress is the 



322 REV. DR. BAKER. 

law of life. Development is always upward. Degeneration 
only serves to confirm growth, which is the rule, the other 
being the exception. The Golden Age is before us. Only let 
us be patient and wait God's time. The kingdom is to be es- 
tablished, and love is to be enthroned. 

" One God, one law, one element, 
And one far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves." 

Third. Charity for all endeavor, — the altruistic spirit. It 
breathes in the President's proclamation. It prompts us to 
tolerance. It calls for brotherhood. Wherever a helping hand 
is held out to humanity, there is the Church, and there we 
clasp hands in social service. The religion of competition is 
giving way to the religion of amity and co-operation. Surely, 
this union service is a prophecy of the future, when, united in 
one spirit, we march together under the banner of the Cross 
for the glory of God and the uplifting of mankind. 






T. B. MORTON. 



The colored race has had its Douglass, its Bruce, its Booker T. Wash- 
ington. The most forceful speaker and profound thinker of the race on 
the Pacific Coast is T. B. Morton. He was born in Virginia, in 1849. In 
1862 Mr. Morton escaped from slavery, and in 1864 took part with the 
Eighth Illinois Regiment in defense of the city of Washington. The 
noted colored preacher, Rev. John Jasper, was his personal friend for 
many years. Mr. Morton settled in California in 1875, and took an ac- 
tive part in Republican politics. He organized the Afro-xAmerican 
League of California, of which he was president for seven years. He is 
an ardent church member, an untiring and energetic worker in the 
Third Baptist Church of San Francisco, holding the office of clerk of the 
church, and in 1899 was a delegate to the Baptist convention (white). 
He has often been a delegate to Republican conventions. Mr. Morton 
is also an active worker in the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, 
holding the responsible position of Advocate of Golden Gate Lodge for 
many years, and is Keeper of Records and Seals in Marechal Niel Lodge 
No. 4, Knights of Pythias. In spite of lack of early education, he has 
fitted himself for responsible positions, having held the trusted position 
of messenger to the United States circuit court of appeals and the 
United States circuit court for some years, and having charge of the 
library of those courts, which positions he still holds. Mr. Morton was 
appointed by the National Republican Committee in 1896 to organize 
and manage the colored vote in California. He has also taken an active 
interest in the Hochstadter fund for colored school children, and has 
always been active in every public interest that affects his people, hav- 
ing recently organized the Afro- American Co-operative Investment As- 
sociation (incorporated), holding the office of treasurer thereof. 

THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE COLORED RACE. 

[Delivered by Mr. Morton as his annual address as the state presi- 
dent of the Afro-American Leagues of California, before the third an- 
nual congress of the leagues, held at Fresno, July 20, 1897.1 

Delegates, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — Under the guidance 
of a kind Providence we have again met in annual congress to 
confer and deliberate upon plans, and to act for the improve- 
ment of the condition of our people in this state. 

323 



324 T. B. MORTON. 

It is frequently asked, Of what use are your congresses and 
conventions? It is then boldly asserted, "You meet, and your 
flippant men declaim in grand oratorical style against the in- 
justice perpetrated against your race; deal extensively in in- 
vectives against those who, aided by your loyalty and suffrage, 
have been placed in authority and power, but who refuse to 
recognize you in the distribution of the fruits of victory; ex- 
press surprise and wonder at the proprietors and managers of 
business establishments, farms, and other industries not giv- 
ing you a chance to earn your livelihood and thereby elevate 
yourselves, however willing and competent you are to labor 
and perform any service done by other people; descant upon 
the virtues of your sires in Revolutionary times; glorify your- 
selves and your immediate ancestry upon the brilliant patri- 
otic record made by your race in the late family quarrel, 
which resulted in the partial (not complete) freedom which 
your race enjoys throughout the country to-day. But what 
do you do, yourselves?" 

It is also further asserted — often by some of our own best 
people — that the race has not yet reached that plane of ag- 
gressive independence and nobility of character necessary to 
support a great spontaneous, organized movement, such as our 
leagues represent. 

Nevertheless, I am proud to see that we are struggling so 
nobly against the accumulated wrongs and these senseless 
theories and notions. We owe it to ourselves and posterity, 
to our country and state, to contend boldly and manfully for 
the enjoyment of every right and privilege guaranteed to all 
the citizens of our great republic, and at the same time to dis- 
prove in a practical way those groundless assertions and wild 
theories of our smiling enemies. Truly, there is much yet to 
be accomplished among ourselves. We want, and must have, 
a union of means, of confidence, of association, and finally, of 
co-operation. Let us form co-operative associations within 
our league, based upon capital, it matters not how small the 
beginning, which, under wise, intelligent, correct guidance, 
would ere long change our channel from distrust and disgrace 
to that of honor and profit. 
• We must adopt a life of conduct and practice that will 



IMPEOVEMENT OF THE COLORED RACE. 325 

bring us closer to our better men and women, and thus to our 
best selves, creating and maintaining an interchanging and 
exchanging sympathy, without which there is no fellowship. 
This will enable us in due time to become, in part at least, a 
community of business men and women, engaged in every 
pursuit which will reward with wealth and honor. All honest 
labor is honorable. Just look at our conditions; humble as 
they are, they are jeopardized by the great stream of foreign 
immigration and labor unions which are at every step re- 
placing us in all the lower walks of life, aided, of course, by 
the senseless prejudice that exists against us on account of our 
color, a distinction of which every true Afro- American ought 
to feel justly proud. 

How can we attain the results so much desired? I am not 
unmindful of the fact that no race has made the progress 
within twice the time that has been made by our race within 
the past thirty years. But we must not be content with what 
has been done in the past. The question is, What are we do- 
ing now? Are we prepared to surmount the difficulties that 
are ahead? Are we arranging to pass down to our posterity 
an inheritance equal to that which we received from our an- 
cestors, comparing their environments with our conditions? 

In my judgment, it is fitting that I should say something 
upon the subject of co-operation. And what is co-operation, 
in the sense in which we have employed the word? Co-opera- 
tion is not co-operation unless confidence permeates every 
element of the co-operative body. Every other sort of co- 
operation is a mere shadow, a mere name. General Lee and 
Jefferson Davis could not have continued that little unpleas- 
antness for our perpetual enslavement by their own indomita- 
ble will and great military skill and ability alone. But they 
were co-operated with and supported by millions who had 
faith in the cause and confidence in their leadership. Nor 
could the immortal Lincoln and our idolized Grant have given 
them the spanking they did, and preserved the greatest repub- 
lic on the face of the globe to the grandest people in the world, 
had they not been co-operated with and supported by millions 
with greater confidence in the noble cause, the cause of right 
and justice. Cyrus W. Field laid the Atlantic cable, not alone 



326 T. B. MORTON. 

by his energy, which, indeed, was indomitable, but because the 
men who joined with him stuck to him through thick and 
thin, fully confident that at last he would lay the cable — and 
he laid it. 

The work of the individual is essential to success in all co- 
operation, — in fact, is the foundation upon which all successful 
co-operation must rest, and the keynote to its success; but it 
must be the individual who has confidence in himself, and the 
desire to achieve success for all, and not self alone. No one 
will be inspired to co-operate with the individual who has no 
confidence in himself, and no ambition to climb higher, in any 
movement for the betterment of the community, or in any 
business enterprise. Such an one would be a drone, a draw- 
back, and a source of evil so long as he was allowed to remain 
within the co-operative body. He would be like a dog with 
two bones before him; he would neither eat one himself, nor 
allow any other dog to eat it, not realizing what a mean crea- 
ture he is until he loses both and goes off begging for a crust. 

Success that goes from the bottom to the top has had confi- 
dence behind it, to carry it beyond the obstacles which lie in 
the path of every undertaking, and has had from time imme- 
morial. Unless human nature undergoes a radical change for 
the better, man's endeavors must have difficulties and checks 
down to the end of time. We should not allow difficulties of 
any kind to destroy confidence; they should rather be a stimu- 
lus to it. Nor should misunderstandings among us becloud 
or chill confidence. They should rather produce a clearer vis- 
ion and a warmer zeal for success. Everything conceived in 
the human mind and dependent upon human endeavor has 
its tentative, experimental, elementary period, and no man can 
see clearly to the end in advance. Therefore, when difficul- 
ties, embarrassments, and disappointments come, we know it 
is because they must needs be, being part and parcel of 
all human undertakings. The enterprises and undertakings 
which succeed in spite of these natural and necessary draw- 
backs are those founded upon abiding confidence, and which 
push on in intelligent co-operation. This confidence may rest 
more upon the love one has for the idea and ambition of 
wealth and advancement, than for the love of those who co- 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE COLORED RACE. 327 

operate with us. Nevertheless, the love, as the motor power, 
is there, and if all the co-operative body is actuated by the 
same sentiment, you cannot fail. The enterprises that sink 
beneath the difficulties that arise are those which are un- 
wisely conceived, mischievously conducted, or, however wisely 
planned or honestly conducted, are retarded and hopelessly 
cumbered by ignorance, envy, suspicion, malice, and, last and 
worst of all, inattention to business methods. 

A clear-cut deduction from these thoughts is, that there can 
be no progressive life by us as a race without co-operation, 
and that no true co-operation is possible without confidence. 
These deductions may be applied to the condition of men 
everywhere, but they apply with great force to the conditions 
existing against us in this state to-day. Let us put on our 
thinking-caps, put our heads together, and devise some plan 
for our own uplifting; build up enterprises among ourselves; 
join good associations, put good men at their head, and then 
sustain them. In fine, join head, hand, heart, and means, 
however small, for success, seeing that our spirit of co-opera- 
tion weaken not, and that our confidence shy not at the first 
suspicion of evil. 

I wish to say that our deliberations are not addressed to our 
white fellow-citizens and friends, for they know too well from 
their own histories into whose coffers for centuries the rewards 
of our labor have gone; hence they understand our condition 
and our needs, and they will in due course of time, through 
the revolution of public sentiment (which it is our duty and 
object to arouse), sooner or later yield to its decision. 

Our purpose is to labor and legislate among ourselves to 
correct existing evils; to exchange ideas in regard to our con- 
ditions and environments, with the view of exalting those 
ideas to the highest purposes; to expand intelligent faculties 
which point continually to the importance as well as the ne- 
cessity of our people engaging more in the same avocations 
and callings by co-operation, if not alone, which make other 
people great, before we clamor too loudly for participation in 
such greatness. We must learn to appreciate labor as honor- 
able, no matter how humble. If we are in the janitor's posi- 
tion, laboring on the streets, on the farm, as hostlers, waiters, 



328 T. B. MORTON. 

domestic servants, or in any calling by which we can earn an 
honest living, support our families, and educate our children, 
let us bring honor to such work, and dignify it by a faithful 
discharge of our duties. Let us do what we find to do, how- 
ever humble, with pride and with such ability that there can 
be no room for improvement. It is the duty of mothers and 
teachers to instill this vital principle into the youth of the 
race. This is not only the true foundation for character- 
building, but the mainspring to higher aspirations; and from 
my own personal experience I can say that any education 
which does not teach and insist upon this principle is decep- 
tive and misleading, and does not reach its proper object. The 
disposition is becoming too prevalent with our educated men 
and women to be forever making sport of the ignorance and 
shortcomings of our foreparents. This is true even of too 
many of our ministers, or would-be ministers, of the gospel, 
many of whom cannot do half as well as those they deride, 
either in the pulpit or out of it. This is a pertinent thought, 
for it is always easier to criticise and denounce others than to 
reform and improve ourselves. Some of us have a way of 
shirking our own individual responsibilities by continually 
calling attention to the shortcomings of others, thereby divert- 
ing attention from the fact that we are doing nothing at all. 
We must not be idle. The Irish race sets us a striking exam- 
ple in this regard, which it would profit us to imitate. That 
something is effected by merely expressing our sensibilities of 
our wrongs I will admit, but there is need that something 
more practical should engage the attention of this congress — 
and I believe it will. 

The story of our natural inferiority I denounce as a natural 
lie. The song that we are a disunited and a quarrelsome peo- 
ple among ourselves has been sung so much, that while no 
truer of us than of all other peoples, yet has almost caused 
the ear of solicitude to cease inquiry into our condition, and 
has almost closed the eye of sympathy, which no longer 
moistens with the tear of consideration and benevolence, as in 
olden times. The host of friends who once stood by us have 
been driven by this senseless and restless storm of detraction 
into an almost placid admission of our def aiders' charges: 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE COLORED RACE. 329 

hence the barbarous craze is practiced upon us unchecked by 
the law and unnoticed by the Christian world. But we are 
still loyal to the government, God be praised. 

We are not discouraged. Our future is bright — we will 
make it so. Our race has a grand, noble escutcheon; let us 
not disgrace it. There is really nothing mean and low but 
sin; so we will continue to trust in that God who has not 
failed us in the dark past, bend our energies in the right di- 
rection, and ere long we shall turn the corner of human preju- 
dice with our colors flying high, with the banner of our blessed 
Redeemer for our shibboleth of faith. God never intended 
that strong, independent beings, as we are, should ever rise by 
clinging to others. It is but natural for those who are weak 
to appeal to the higher and stronger, but it must be for aid 
only to their own strength, and with such strength as they re- 
ceive they must climb alone higher and higher. We have 
need of character, prestige, and strength, not to sustain a vir- 
tuous Christian life only, but to maintain the best product of 
American citizenship. When we return to our homes, let each 
man and woman assume the responsibility of setting in mo- 
tion the good lessons gleaned from this congress, and let those 
who have asked what was the benefit of our congress see by 
our constant labor and determined efforts that among us a 
new principle has been introduced; or rather, that the old 
principle has been revived with a new enthusiasm in the 
carrying out of its objects, and God will bless our work and 
crown our efforts with success. 



330 T. B. MORTON. 



EMANCIPATION AND ITS OBLIGATIONS. 

[Address as master of ceremonies on the occasion of the celebration 
of the emancipation proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, held in African 
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, San Francisco, January 1, 1896, 
under the auspices of the Afro-American League.] 

Fellow-Citizens, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — All over the 
state of California, wherever there is an Afro- American league, 
at this very hour, this day is being fittingly and appropriately 
honored and celebrated in obedience to a resolution which was 
unanimously adopted in our recent congress. Let us con- 
gratulate each other that there are so many of us left in whom 
the love of God, the spirit of liberty, patriotism, and the last 
spark of pride of race have not perished for the great blessing 
that came by Him who directs the destinies of nations, to our 
whole race thirty-three years ago, which caused the friends of 
liberty throughout the civilized world to rejoice that freedom's 
cause had been vindicated and triumphed in defense of the 
rights of man, and that justice was once more the flaming 
watchword of a great, grand, and noble people. 

But glorious as this certainly is, yet may we not pertinently 
and in all fairness and frankness ask the question, Are the 
American people true to the principles to which we all owe our 
freedom? The first emancipation of a whole people, of which 
we have any record, is that of the ancient Israelites from the 
yoke of the Egyptians. According to Josephus, they num- 
bered about three million souls; their slavery had lasted four 
hundred and thirty years, and their deliverance was most 
miraculous, for it was effected by the direct intervention of 
God, speaking through the most astounding miracles. In their 
long, dreary march through the wilderness they were led by 
the visible presence of their Maker and Deliverer, which shone 
in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Yet 
in a few generations these very same people were again en- 
slaved by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, because they had 



EMANCIPATION AND ITS OBLIGATIONS. 331 

proven themselves false to the principles to which they owed 
their freedom. 

The Tartars in China gained their emancipation in the four- 
teenth century of the Christian era, but, owing to the lack of 
harmony, internal dissensions broke out among them, and 
they could not maintain their organization as an independent 
government. They were persecuted, shamefully oppressed by 
the Czar of Russia, and finally driven across the Chinese bor- 
der and again enslaved. 

The independent constitutional government of the Magyars 
of Hungary existed for two hundred years, but they, too, were 
untrue to the principles to which their independence was due; 
and to-day in every land may be heard the moans of the wan- 
dering sons of Poland for the long-lost Iron Crown which sym- 
bolized their people and country. 

Scan the history of the French nation. From 1792 it fur- 
nishes us many lessons against the folly of forgetting the prin- 
ciples to which we owe our freedom. 

The American Revolution was launched upon the highest 
( and broadest recognition of the rights of man in 1776, but 
eleven years later those illustrious men who had just an- 
nounced to the world the grand and lofty truth that all men 
are created free and equal, and declared that this fact was so 
clear, so plain and indisputable, that it is self-evident, by a 
fatal spirit of compromise adopted unanimously a constitution 
recognizing the right of property in man. Here, again, we 
have a most instructive warning against the mistaken wisdom 
of ignoring the true basis upon which we secured our own free- 
dom, and on which only can be maintained a government of 
justice and the largest liberty of the people consistent with 
the order and peace of society. The great cancer of slavery, 
then concealed, was not healed until by the bloody deluge of 
1865, — of which John Brown was the martyred forerunner. 

One of the first proclamations issued by that great martyr 
to American emancipation was the one inviting all Christians 
and the people generally to assemble in their churches and 
places of worship and pray to the God of the armies of heaven 
to reinforce the armies of the Union. The request was obeyed, 
the people prayed, and in breathless silence the answer from 



332 T. B. MORTON. 

above was awaited by the friends of the Union everywhere. 
On the 16th of April, 1862, the answer came; the slaves of the 
District of Columbia were emancipated, — three hundred dol- 
lars being paid for each, out of the treasury of the United 
States. While the chains, shackles, and iron bands of bondage 
were falling from the limbs of the Negro in the District of 
Columbia, and the songs and exclamations of the friends of 
union and freedom were rending the air, the clouds of heaven 
seemed to roll away that God might smile his sunlight of ap- 
proval upon this mighty act of justice. The President of the 
United States, standing firm upon the rock of right and jus- 
tice, amidst the troublesome waves and the rolling billows of 
military necessity, on the twenty-second day of September, 
1862, issued another proclamation, and in conformity with its 
terms and conditions, did, on the first day of January, 1863, 
issue the great emancipation proclamation, which will soon be 
read in your hearing, and which act of justice is now being 
celebrated by the Afro- American leagues all over this state 
to-night. 

Oh, how can any member of our race, or any of our white 
fellow-citizens who believe in the freedom of their fellow-men, 
ever forget the night following the first day of January, 1863, 
when the entire civilized world waited in breathless silence 
(and our race in mingled hope and agonizing fear) to see if 
Abraham Lincoln would fulfill his promises. He did not fail, 
and that dark night was transformed into our first bright day 
of unutterable joy. And, mark my words, it will be a sorry 
day for our liberties when we forget the voice and lessons of 
that night. 

But it should be borne in mind that this emancipation of 
the American slave was not the noblest moral act of this great 
republic, for that was largely, if not entirely, due to the mili- 
tary expediency of the hour. The brightest jewel in the 
crown of the republic was placed there by the Republican ma- 
jority in Congress, which secured the adoption of the fourteenth 
and fifteenth amendments to the constitution of the United 
States, and thus made certain by legislative enactment the 
second and civic emancipation of our race, against the stub- 
born, bitter, and persistent opposition of the national Demo- 



EMANCIPATION AND ITS OBLIGATIONS. 333 

cratic party in Congress, thereby placing in our hands the 
means of maintaining the personal freedom secured by the 
first emancipation. 

On this first day of a new year, and thirty-second anniver- 
sary of our freedom, we can look forward with courage and 
great expectation to the near future with the conviction that 
the advent of a better day is not far distant, when the wrongs 
and prejudices now existing shall be swept away by a public 
opinion that will demand, and maintain by legislative enact- 
ment, complete justice and true equality before the law to all 
men of every color and of all climes within the borders of this 
great country. 

In calling your attention to the above indisputable histori- 
cal deductions I do so only by way of admonition. If we 
would succeed and make our mark as a race, we must cultivate 
full and complete harmony, for in union there is strength, and 
the Afro-American League extends the most cordial greetings 
and holds out the olive branch to all. We owe it to the 
memory of this day, and to those who have suffered in the past 
and wrought this mighty monument to freedom. We owe it 
to ourselves, we owe it to our posterity and the cause of lib- 
erty, to keep this great day fresh in the memories of succeeding 
generations, that the precious sunlight of liberty may burn 
brighter and brighter down through the ages of time. 

Ladies and gentlemen, it is not my duty on this occasion to 
recall to your minds the work of the race for the past thirty- 
three years, nor to point out some of the steps that have led to 
the marvelous development of thirty-odd years of labor in the 
field, the trades, the schoolhouse, the seminary, and the col- 
lege, nor the unexpected bravery and gallantry of our race 
upon the many fierce, bitter, and bloody battle-fields of the 
republic, which, after a long, dreary siege of five years, culmi- 
nated in a grand, notable, and not to be forgotten victory for 
humanity, liberty, and equal common justice for all American 
citizens before the law. 

But, while we magnify the agony and glory of the Civil War, 
the reunion of the South with the North reminds us all that a 
portion of our birthright so dearly purchased with blood and 
treasure is still withheld from us, and that the complete meas- 



, 



334 T. B. MOKTON. 

ure of our rights is stubbornly resisted and cruelly denied. 
That responsible and pleasurable duty to marshal from the 
past the wonderful achievements accomplished by our race 
since the great civil strife has been by common consent as- 
signed to a distinguished gentleman and friend who is fully 
able and more competent to delight and interest us all with 
the brilliant record of the past thirty-odd years than I. 



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GEORGE T. BROMLEY. 

George T. Bromley, known to all Bohemians as "Uncle George," 
is known and loved for his genial personality and his wit. Of the two 
of his speeches printed in this volume, the one delivered at Santa Cruz 
was his first attempt, and he here relates the circumstances under 
which it was made ; the other was delivered soon after his eightieth 
birthday, and is anions: his latest speeches. 

UNCLE GEORGE'S SCHOOL SPEECH. 

It was during the quiet winter months at Santa Cruz that the teacher 
in charge of the public school decided to give an entertainment in order 
to raise funds for repairing the schoolhouse, as the funds of the district 
were entirely exhausted and the repairs imperative. Preparations were 
duly made and programmes prepared, and the community was on the 
tiptoe of expectation. On the evening of the entertainment I was be- 
hind the scenes, assisting the ladies to prepare their tableaux, butw T hen 
the time came for beginning the exercises, the two gentlemen who were 
to have given the opening number on the programme — a song — had 
" fallen down," so to speak. They did not put in an appearance, and 
the men and half-grown boys in the audience were becoming obstrep- 
erous. The ladies w T ere nervous and somewhat apprehensive, and 
begged me to go on the stage and say a few words to divert their atten- 
tion and keep them quiet. I was not down on the programme, but it is 
not in my nature to refuse any reasonable request from a lady ; so I got 
myself together and prepared for the ordeal. My speech had the de- 
sired effect, but the first intimation I had that I had done anything 
unusual was when I went back of the scenes again, and found that 
instead of continuing their preparations, the ladies had stood stock- 
still to listen to me. The next day I met the editor of the Santa Cruz 
Sentinel at the hotel, and said he : — 

" Oh, I 've got you down, all right." 

" What do you mean?" asked I. 

" Why," said he, " I took your speech down in shorthand, and I am 
going to publish it." 

" Don't you do it," said I ; "for I have friends outside of Santa Cruz, 
and should they read that speech, they will think I have gone into sec- 
ond childhood." 

He promised me that he would not print the thing, but when he 
came to make up his paper he professed to have needed just that much 

335 



< 



336 GEORGE T. BROMLEY. 

matter ; so the speech appeared, very much to my annoyance. Equally 
to my astonishment it became famous as "Uncle George's School 
Speech." When Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps was visiting President 
D. C. Gilman of the Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore, it was 
brought to her notice, and she was so pleased with it that she made a 
copy. She sent it to Mr. Whitelaw Reid, and he in turn gave it to my 
brother Isaac, who was then on the editorial staff of the New York 
Tribune. He, in turn, sent it to me, and that is the only copy in my pos- 
session. It is as follows : — 

"Ladies, Gentlemen, and Children, — I appear before you 
to apologize for the non-appearance of the two gentlemen 
whose names appear on the programme, and am requested to 
make a little speech as a substitute for the songs they were to 
sing. Now, I had calculated to address the children on this 
occasion, but, unfortunately, the young lady who was to ac- 
company me on the piano was so overcome by its rehearsal, 
that she has not been out of the house since. Therefore I shall 
have to deliver the address without the accompaniment, and 
leave out the most affecting part, for fear of consequences. 

"Now, if there is any one thing that I love to do better than 
another, it is to make speeches to children, because I love 
them. In fact, I have it on very good authority that I was 
once a little boy myself, and although not so good as some 
other little boys, yet the only reason for that was, there were 
so many little boys who were better than I was. So you see 
how near I came to being one of the best little boys in that 
district. I mention this for your encouragement. 

" Now, we want you all to be good children, to love your 
books and your teachers. I love your teachers because they 
are the most lovable of any teachers I have ever known, and 
they have worked very hard to get up this entertainment to 
raise money to put a new floor in the schoolhouse and to get 
nice new seats for the little boys' trousers — no, nice new trou- 
sers for the little boys' seats — no, I don't mean that, either; 
but I am so confused. What I do mean is, to get nice new 
seats to keep the boys from wearing out their trousers. 

" They have worked so hard to do all this, and have some- 
times sat up so late at night, and I have been so sorry that I 
could not sit up with them and help them, but I could n't, be- 
cause I had to sit up at the hotel and let people in who were 



UNCLE GEORGE'S SCHOOL SPEECH. 337 

out late. Now, if you are good children, you will never keep 
the man at the hotel up to let you in, when he wants to be sit- 
ting up with your teachers and helping them to get up a festi- 
val to raise money to buy a new floor, and all that sort of 
thing, for the schoolhouse. If what I am saying is too deep 
for you children to understand, you can get your parents to 
explain it in the morning, after they get through dancing. 

" When I was a little boy, how I did love to go to school — 
Saturday afternoons, when there was n't any! and how well 
do I remember my first sum in arithmetic! It was sum sum, 
I thought; and I can see it now as plain as though it were 
only one day last week. It was 'ought and ought is ought, 
and ought is oughty-ought.' I cut off the top line, and it 
proved correct. I took it to the teacher, and I expected that 
he would get me a situation in a corner grocery store, I was so 
quick at figures. He looked at the sum and passed back the 
slate, and said he, 'You have figured up just about all you will 
ever amount to.' I did n't know at that time what he meant, 
but I was very much affected, and I thanked him, and asked 
him if I could n't stand up and see who whispered. He said, 
No; but that I might go home and tell my mother to put a 
nail in my forehead to hang my hat on, as it was a pity to 
wear out good hats on such a head. We all loved that teacher 
— when he moved away. He was very pious, and always 
opened school with prayer — or a long stick, — and we used to 
think he did n't care which, for he told us once that he was 
bound to have the school opened on time if he had to open it 
with an oyster-knife. He was so prompt. He used to repeat 
Scripture to us, but he was very forgetful, and once he tried to 
tell us about what is said of 'Suffer little children,' but he 
forgot the rest, — and the little children had to suffer. 

" Now, I want to show you the importance of improving your 
time. I knew a little boy in San Jose who loved to go to 
school and loved his books, and he grew up to be great, and 
wise, and good, and when he learned all there was in San Jose, 
he went to Milpitas, and there he was made postmaster. When 
the other two men moved away, he set up a hotel, and he had 
no opposition; so, you see, you must love your books, if you 
want to be postmaster at Milpitas. 



338 GEORGE T. BROMLEY. 

"And then, again, if yon ever get to know enough to make 
a speech at a school festival, you will know how easy it is to 
begin, and how hard it is to leave off. I have been trying for 
about five minutes to stop this one of mine, and I can only do 
so now by abruptly bidding you good night." 

That the other papers copied freely from the Sentinel is my excuse for 
reproducing here this bit of nonsense. 



SLOAT MONUMENT ADDRESS. 339 



SLOAT MONUMENT ADDRESS. 

[Address on the occasion of the laying of the corner-stone of the 
monument erected in honor of Commodore Sloat, at Monterey, Cali- 
fornia, July 3, 1902.] 

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — When Major 
Sherman invited me to be present and take part in the cere- 
monies of the day, I was at a loss as to what could be his 
object, for I was not a veteran of any war, nor could I talk of 
battles fought and won in which I had been a participant. 
But he gave me to understand that as a veteran railroad-man 
I would be expected to assist in placing in this monument the 
block of granite that was presented by the Central Pacific 
Railroad Company, — an honor that I most thoroughly appre- 
ciate, — and I want to say that this day marks an epoch in my 
fourscore years of life that will stand out in bold relief until 
shall come to me the one-hundredth anniversary of my well- 
-spent life, which has been brimful of enjoyment and of honor 
conferred, but the honor of to-day is one that will be remem- 
bered by me until life's sun shall set, and time with me shall 
be no more. 

The ceremonies of to-day have for me an interest far above 
and beyond that of most of those who are here to assist in doing 
honor to the memory of Commodore Sloat, for I knew him in 
his early manhood, in my far-away New England home, when 
his son, Worthington Sloat, and myself were schoolmates; and 
could we have foreseen that in three quarters of a century from 
those schoolboy days I should be honored by participating in 
the raising of a monument that would perpetuate the heroic 
deeds of his honored father for all time to come, we would 
have loved each other with a love that knew no variableness 
or shadow of turning. 

My railroad career, which is the head and front of my being 
with you to-day, and which our patriotic and energetic Major 
Sherman would have me speak about, in order to show that I 



340 GEORGE T. BROMLEY. 

know my lesson, was inaugurated in 1855, when, in charge of 
the construction train, I assisted in building the first railroad 
operated on the west side of the North American continent, 
and you can bet it was a wonderful railroad. 

It was twenty-two miles in length, and connected Sacra- 
mento with Folsom. For nine years I was the conductor of 
the passenger train, outranking the stage-driver, who, up to 
the time of the advent of the conductor, was a power among 
the women and children in that part of the country. 

My experience on that twenty-two miles of road would fill a 
volume of thrilling interest. 

Many of the passengers of those days who deprived them- 
selves of the necessaries of life to obtain transportation to the 
Comstock Lode in Nevada returned as millionaires and became 
very respectable citizens. 

And standing here on this historic spot, where nature has 
showered upon us her most generous gifts, — the most beauti- 
ful climate, the most beautiful trees, and the most beautiful 
women in the world, — I feel like Ulysses returning to Penel- 
ope, and bringing to her the Golden Fleece, for he said to her, 
" I bring to thee the thread which binds the West to the East, 
and I make friends of two countries unknown to each other, 
and may I make love the bond between two peoples, the old 
and the new." 

But, ladies and gentlemen, having said enough to convince 
you that no mistake was made in selecting me for putting in 
place the memorial stone donated by the Central Pacific Rail- 
road Company, and thanking you for the kind attention you 
have given me, I will now give way for the applause. 






HON. GEOBGE C. PERKINS. 

Geoege Clement Perkins was born at Augusta, Maine, in the year 
1839. He came to California as a sailor boy. His experiences as a 
miner, clerk, merchant, and ship-owner educated him for a wise and 
useful career as state senator, governor, and United States Senator. He 
was elected state senator in 1869 ; goveruor of California in 1879 ; and 
entered the United States Senate in 1894. Mr. Perkins has always been 
active in fraternal societies, and in organizations for the betterment of 
the people. As a speaker, he has a direct, business-like style. The 
arrangement of his thought is logical, and is characterized by a clear 
grasp of the subject. He was the most popular speaker in the state 
during his term as governor, and delivered many addresses and lec- 
tures. Since he entered Congress in 1894, up to the present time, he 
has always had something to say on pending questions. One of his 
first and most effective speeches was on the Wilson and Gorman tariff 
bill in 1894, where he reviewed the many industries of California, and 
presented their claims for the protection or fostering by the national 
government. He has also made several notable speeches in favor of 
electing Senators by the direct vote of the people. 

KNIGHTS TEMPLAR ADDRESS. 

[Address of welcome at the twenty-second triennial conclave of the 
Knights Templar of the Grand Encampment of the United States, at 
San Francisco, August 21, 1883.] 

Most Eminent Grand Master and Sir Knights, — The 
pleasing duty falls to my lot, as the Grand Commander of 
the Knights Templar of California, to extend to you and to 
the Grand. Encampment of the United States, and to all visit- 
ing Sir Knights, our hearty salutation and welcome to our 
state and city. 

We rejoice that, after another three years' pilgrimage on 
earth, we are granted the honor and pleasure of meeting you 
again. While we have been called ever and anon to step aside 
and drop a tear and flower upon the grave of a fellow-pilgrim, 
we are still permitted to enjoy the privilege of helping to ad- 
vance the noble mission of our order. We join with you in 

341 



342 HON. GEORGE C. PERKINS. 

rendering our homage of praise and adoration to the boun- 
teous Giver of all good for life and health, and all the mani- 
fold blessings we enjoy. We are reminded, as we look over 
this magnificent assemblage of Sir Knights, that the twenty- 
second triennial conclave of Knights Templar of the United 
States is about to convene. Only a fervent zeal and devotion 
to the great cause in which you have enlisted could have 
brought so many valiant and magnanimous Sir Knights, 
whose fame for goodly deeds and knightly courtesies is fra- 
grant in the land, so far from their homes and peaceful avoca- 
tions. With great pleasure we have anticipated your coming. 
We felt assured that your visit would be a season of mutual 
profit and joyance, marked by the most agreeable associations 
and recollections. Sir, we bid you a sincere welcome to our 
tents, and share with you our bread and water; such as we 
have, we cheerfully give unto you. You will find the Sir 
Knights of California dwelling together in peace and love, 
loyal to the Grand Encampment of the United States, and un- 
divided in their high appreciation of you and your eminent 
service. With hand to hand and heart to heart we greet you, 
and renew our pledge to guard our sacred Triangle and re- 
double our efforts to spread the beneficent principles of our 
order. In the presence of this mighty host of gallant Sir 
Knights, with glittering swords, waving plumes and banners, 
thought spontaneously wings its way back to that remote 
period, when, moved by a wave of religious enthusiasm un- 
paralleled in the world's history, the steel-clad knights of 
Europe, mustered under their battle-flag, "the Beauseant," 
half- white and half-black, — fair and favorable to the friends 
of Christianity, but dark and terrible to its enemies, — took up 
their line of march to the Holy Sepulcher. 

"God wills it! God wills it!" was the battle-shout with 
which they charged the pagan hosts, clove down the Crescent, 
hurled back the mocking Saracen, and planted the Cross on 
the walls of the Holy City. Yet it is a gratifying reflection, 
and one in full accord with the spirit of this occasion, that 
Templarism is the child of such matchless religious fervor and 
devotion. It was born at the Sepulcher and cradled on the 
shield of faith. The age of chivalry is past. The weary 



KNIGHTS TEMPLAR ADDRESS. 343 

march of the crusader is over. The song of the troubadour is 
no longer heard in the land. In the history of time, the 
memory of those eventful centuries are but as a twinkle in the 
dawn of eternity. 

But we have drifted so far away into other latitudes of 
thought and belief, that the valor, devotion, and enthusiasm 
of those ancient soldiers of the Cross would seem as dim, spec- 
tral shapes, flitting through the soft haze of myth and ro- 
mance, did not modern Templarism embody the substance of 
their faith, hope, and aspiration. The rough, harsh exterior 
has perished, but the truth is eternal. Christianity is the 
same yesterda}', to-day, and forever. Sir, we rejoice to meet 
you under the red-cross banner and the symbolic lamb, know- 
ing that you fling to the breeze no apocryphal device, and do 
not come to us arrayed in legendary memories. Templarism 
lights its taper at the sun and bows around the altar of Im- 
manuel, God with us. We hail you as fellow-pilgrims, clad in 
penitential garb, carrying the burning taper of truth in your 
hand, and will join with you in singing our Ascencion hymn 
in the full glory of that hope that throws its light beyond the 
gloom of the grave, and in the sweet assurance of that faith 
that grasps the reality of that home not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens, where our Divine Grand Master dwells 
in the majesty of Power and in the Beauty of Holiness. 

Most Eminent Sir, we cannot restrain the proud exultation 
that Templarism has never arrayed itself against the popular 
will nor put itself in opposition to the advancement of civiliza- 
tion. The whole range of history furnishes no instance where 
it has ever espoused the cause of the tyrant against the people. 
It found religion a shaded lamp, in a dark and barbarous age, 
and placed it as a city on a hill, to give light to the world. It 
gave purity to enthusiasm, beautified glory with generosity, 
taught the heart to expand as a flower in the sunshine of lib- 
erty, and smooth the rugged brow of war. We therefore con- 
template with gratification this array of glittering swords, 
knowing that they are endowed with justice tempered with 
mercy. We look with admiration on your banners as they 
flutter in the breeze, knowing full well they guide to the path 
of honor, integrity, and truth. Well we know these swords 



344 HON. GEORGE C. PERKINS. 

would rest in their scabbards until consumed by rust, before 
they would flash in defense of any law, custom, or creed that 
would stop human progress and turn the shadow back on the 
dial of time. It seems to us meet and proper that, as fellow- 
soldiers of an order engaged in an uncompromising warfare 
against every form of injustice and oppression, we should 
come together and rejoice over our victories, mourn over our 
defeats and failures, and stir each other up to that generous 
and beneficent rivalry, who can make the world most bright 
and beautiful. Sir, we would not forget that the Grand En- 
campment, that august body that is about to assemble, is in 
its character national; that it is composed of valiant and 
magnanimous Sir Knights coming from all parts of the vast 
sisterhood of states. Here are Sir Knights from the East and 
from the West, from the North and the South, mingling in 
fraternal harmony, renewing old friendships, and forming new 
ones never to be broken. Friendships formed at our altar and 
annealed in our glorious cause never fail. They have stood 
the most crucial tests. When the people were divided into 
two camps, and fratricidal strife dashed fire and blood like 
storm-spray upon every home in the land, the hearts that had 
beat with a kindred feeling around one common triangle never 
were alienated from one another. 

It is the glory of our order that the first bow of peace and 
mutual forgiveness that appeared on the bosom of the dark 
and receding storm-cloud of war was hung out by the Grand 
Encampment of the United States. A corresponding disposi- 
tion was found. And in the renewed friendships so early 
made, mutually casting into oblivion the ugly memories of the 
past, was seen the first glimpse of that auroral dawn upon the 
hilltops and mountain peaks, that now bathes the whole land 
in a bounteous sunlight of peace, happiness, and prosperity. 
As fellow-laborers in a fraternal union that knows no party 
lines, no sectional feelings, no latitudes or boundaries of states, 
that union of hearts and hands that is the strongest cement of 
our noble republic, we hail you with knightly salutation under 
our national flag. May I venture to intimate, that while chiv- 
alry first taught devotion and reverence to that fair being 
whose beauty and gentleness were her only defense, it also 



KNIGHTS TEMPLAR ADDRESS. 345 

owes much of its romance and success to her grateful en- 
thusiasm and charm? History, that often neglects to gather 
the many pretty flowers that grow along the burnt path of 
war, has not forgotten to record how the unfailing and 
heroic faith of womanhood often revived the courage of the 
warrior when the red-cross banner had begun to waver in the 
storm of battle, and saved the honor and glory of the day. In 
the golden age of chivalry, when the tournament brought to- 
gether the gallant and brave of all lands, the boldest and 
most valiant knight drew the inspiration of his valor from 
the smile of beauty, and asked no prouder reward than to 
wear upon his crest the glove or bracelet of his lady safely 
through the hard-contested field. You will therefore hear 
with gratification and pleasure that the wives and daughters 
of the Knights Templar of California, hearing of your coming, 
and knowing that the chivalrous gallantry that in a rough 
and barbarous age idealized woman, raised her from a menial, 
a toy and sport of brutal lust, and made her an object of love 
and companionship, still glows in every knightly breast, have 
voluntarily come forward to enliven and refine our triennial 
festivities by the grace of her presence and assistance. They 
early organized an association auxiliary to our triennial com- 
mittee for the purpose of helping to give the first generous and 
courteous reception to the Sir Knights and their ladies. They 
have made the most ample preparations that the delicate taste 
and tact of woman can devise to enhance the enjoy ableness of 
your visit. Sir, the ladies of the Triennial Union extend to 
you their most sincere welcome, and promise that no valiant 
Sir Knight shall go away without some token of their admira- 
tion. 

Sir Knighthood, by its silent and intrinsic excellence, has 
ever commended itself to the admiration of the virtuous and 
the brave, who have not knelt at our shrine and received the 
honor of an accolade. The light has shone through its trans- 
parent drapery of signs and symbols. The world has seen 
enough of its teachings and principles to appreciate their 
beauty and value. Hence our whole community has felt the 
glowing inspiration of your coming, and for months the enter- 
tainment of your august body, in a manner becoming the 



346 HON. GEOEGE C. PERKINS. 

wealth, intelligence, and good name of California for princely- 
hospitality, has been a subject in which this whole people have 
taken a most lively and abiding interest. These decorated 
homes, these streets garlanded with flags, arches, and a pro- 
fusion of evergreens and flowers, are the silent but expressive 
way this whole community holds out to you the hand of wel- 
come. All classes, creeds, orders, and conditions of society, 
without thought of fee or reward, are delighted to have you 
among us, and are deeply solicitous that your visit shall be 
made as agreeable as possible. Sir, California is our home, 
the land of our choice. We have seen its great cities spring 
as by the touch of a magician's rod from canvas huts and wil- 
low cabins. The wild cattle and beast of the forest roamed at 
will where now run the great railroads and telegraph, and the 
trail of the Indian has been obliterated by the march of civil- 
ization. These spacious bays and rivers; these productive 
valleys, abounding with fields, orchards, vineyards, and happy 
homes; these hills and dales, and mountains of solemn gran- 
deur, veined with the precious ores, make it indeed a land of 
promise. Our valleys and hillsides, with varied and prolific 
soil, produce the fruit and the vine, vegetables and cereals, in 
such abundance that the crowned prince, the peasant, and the 
artisan of Europe supply their tables with luxuries from our 
surplus store. 

We point with pride to our schools, colleges, churches, and 
benevolent institutions, as well as to our increasing commerce, 
our growing industries, and, in this line, to our surely coming 
possibilities. And of our climate — between our southern 
boundary, where grow the orange, the pomegranate, and the 
vine, and our northern border, where Shasta rears its majestic 
summit above the clouds, and, clothed in eternal ermine, re- 
flects his sunshine to the sea — there is not a mile of latitude 
but that has its varied climate. The cool and invigorating 
breezes experienced here, and born of the breath of the Pacific, 
pass from its sounding shore across the valleys, warmed and 
softened by perennial sunshine, and finally, rarefied and ris- 
ing, it sighs itself away on the tops of the Sierras, to return 
again, in God's good time, ladened with the odor of fruits and 
flowers, the product of our land, and the result of our toil. 



KNIGHTS TEMPLAR ADDRESS. 347 

Sir, allow me to extend to you, and to the Grand Encamp- 
ment of the United States, and to all visiting Sir Knights and 
their families, our warm, hearty, knightly greeting and wel- 
come. We feel assured that this meeting of this triennial con- 
clave will be one of the red-letter days in our history. We 
welcome you to our homes, our hearts, our asylum. We greet 
you as our brethren, bound together by most solemn vows of 
knighthood, b} r every aspiration of the heart, by every precept 
of our holy religion, as those who will stand shoulder to 
shoulder in grasping the mystic blade of truth and wielding it 
for the innocent and oppressed. And, sir, we indulge the 
hope that when your sojourn among us has ended, and you 
return to your distant homes, you will have no cause to regret 
your journey to this Coast, and that you will often kindly 
think of your fellow-pilgrims encamped where the Pacific 
sings on a golden lea the sunset song of the nation. 



348 HON. GEOEGE C. PERKINS. 



EXTRACTS FROM VARIOUS SPEECHES. 

INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

[Extract from inaugural address as governor of California, at Sacra- 
mento, January, 1880.] 

The public system of education will demand at your hands 
much earnest consideration. The framers of the constitution 
of our state declare a general diffusion of knowledge and in- 
telligence to be essential to the preservation of the rights and 
liberties of the people. Whatever power governs the schools 
shapes the intelligence of the generation. The destiny of a 
republic rests upon an intelligent suffrage, and the intelligence 
of the suffrage depends mainly upon the public school system. 
The changes in the system made necessary by the new consti- 
tution present an opportunity of a general review of the exist- 
ing system, and such wise reconstruction and improvement as 
experience may have suggested, or patient and earnest con- 
sideration may develop. A republican government will 
always be a perfect reflection of the true character of its peo- 
ple, and if we would attain that " righteousness which exalteth 
a nation," and avoid that "sin which is a reproach to any 
people," we must become, in its best and truest sense, an edu- 
cated people. Liberty will not decay so long as government 
is controlled and directed by virtue and intelligence, and in a 
state like ours, where the people are the source of governmental 
power, general education is the only means by which we may 
hope to transmit the free institutions under which we live in 
full vigor to succeeding generations. To neglect or abandon 
our system of public education is to surrender to the ignorance 
and vice which usurp the reins of the government when virtue 
and general intelligence are weakened or decayed. Educate 
our people, and the liberties we enjoy will remain unshaken 
by the assaults of insidious usurpations, and undiminished by 
the flight of time. The state university is the crowning glory 
of our educational system. The new constitution wisely pro- 



EXTRACTS FROM VARIOUS SPEECHES. 349 

vides for its continuation as a public trust. By the terms of 
that instrument, its government is to be perpetually continued 
in the charter prescribed by the Organic Act, passed March 
23, 1868. 



THE COMMERCIAL FUTURE OF THE UNITED STATES. 

[Extract from address on the American merchant marine, before the 
United States Senate, March 13, 1902.] 

During the past few years the United States has made vast 
strides, industrially and politically. The position which they 
now occupy is, in the opinion of more than one close observer, 
tending to change the current of the world's trade. We have 
invaded European markets with our wares, and are in a posi- 
tion to compete with European nations in the markets of the 
Orient. Our production is fast exceeding our power of con- 
sumption, and we must reach out for purchasers beyond our 
shores, as England has done, and as Germany is doing, not 
only by giving large sums of money to her vessels, but by an 
export bounty upon beet-sugar and government aid to other 
industries. 

The shores of the Pacific are to be the future commercial 
battle-ground of the nations, — the Pacific shores of Asia and of 
North and South America. An isthmian canal is to be con- 
structed, which will place us in the center of the trade of the 
two great oceans of the globe; but to secure to ourselves the 
vast benefits which should be ours from that position, we 
must have the power to influence that trade, and that can be 
done only through ships bearing the American flag and 
manned by Americans, whose interests lie in this country, 
and not in another. To be the focus of the world's trade, we 
must be connected with all the continents by constantly and 
imperceptibly turning attention to our own shores. We have 
a large trade with Japan, which is carried on, in part, by a 
line of Japanese steamships larger and better than those of 
any American line on the Pacific. 



350 HON. GEORGE C. PERKINS. 

WHY THE CHINESE MENACE OUR INSTITUTIONS. 

[Extract from address on Chinese exclusion, before the United States 
Senate, April 8, 1902.] 

What has been said will give some idea of the character of 
the immigrants that we desire to exclude from our shores. It 
is easy to infer, from the facts given, something of the nature 
of the communities that would be formed were our pro-Chinese 
friends' desire complied with. The 25,000 Chinese in San 
Francisco offer an opportunity for learning how well fitted 
they are to enter upon the course of life that v Americans have 
laid out for themselves. Bringing with them slavery, concu- 
binage, prostitution, the opium vice, the disease of leprosy, the 
offensive and defensive organization of clans and guilds, the 
lowest standard of living known, and a detestation of the peo- 
ple among whom they live, and with whom they will not even 
leave their bones when dead, they form a community within a 
community, and there live the Chinese life. 

They have their terrorists' societies, their laws and customs, 
enforced with the barbarity which characterizes such enforce- 
ment in Cnina, and they yield only outward obedience to the 
law of the land. They make use of our courts, hy means of 
false witnesses, to reach with punishment some offender 
against themselves, and by the same means prevent justice 
from being done in cases in which they are a party. They are 
rigidly organized to evade all laws bearing hard upon them, 
and the organization is so perfect that evasion is not difficult. 
They herd together by thousands in small space, caring noth- 
ing for shelter beyond the four walls and roof, and creating a 
district of dirt and filth where once were cleanliness and 
beauty. Within the dark and smoky rookeries where they 
dwell they open dens for the demoralization of the white 
youths who surround them. They neither build nor repair, 
beautify nor cleanse, and their quarter reverts to the condi- 
tions found in the densely crowded cities of China. In such a 
sink, is it to be wondered at that nothing American can find a 
place; that no idea born of our civilization can find a lodg- 
ment; that the most prominent result is crime? Although 
the Chinese are only three per cent of the population of the 
state, they furnish four per cent of the criminals under sen- 
tence in the prisons of the state. 



JAMES D. PHELAN. 

James D. Phelan, during his several terms as mayor of San Fran- 
cisco, delivered many notable addresses. The address of welcome, the 
introductory speech, the after-dinner talk, and the more stately oration 
have always been made in the most happy style by Mayor Phelan. He 
is a graceful orator. The two brief selections are excellent examples of 
his style. 

VERDI MEMORIAL EXERCISES ADDRESS. 

[Address at the Tivoli Opera House, San Francisco, February 24, 
1901.] 

It is creditable to the citizens of San Francisco to meet here 
to-day to honor one of the master minds of the world. It has 
been said that there is nothing great on earth but man, and 
nothing great in man but mind. Myriads of men are born, 
labor, live, and die, — "All who walk the earth are but a hand- 
ful to those who sleep within its bosom," — and yet, through 
all the ages, how few have been endowed with the spark of im- 
mortal genius, the divine afflatus, the gift of the gods, which 
distinguishes them from their fellows, to dignify humanity, 
and to illumine the darkness which envelops us. In Giuseppe 
Verdi we have such a man. 

What are the lives of kings and queens, ordinary mortals, 
born to power in a narrow sphere, who, if they do not abuse 
it, are esteemed gracious sovereigns? Indeed, we are grateful 
if they do us no injury. Compare, however, the dynasties 
of Hanoverian and Plantagenet with the beneficent rule of 
genius, elevating mankind, whose empire is the uncircum- 
scribed realms of thought, and whose willing and delighted 
subjects are all the people of every land. Verdi's death, there- 
fore, is the sorrow of the world. 

Here in California we are a cosmopolitan people. Every 
land has made a contribution to our citizenship, and each is 
proud of a particular ancestry. How proud are the Italians 
of their Verdi ! They call us here to-day, and we gladly re- 

351 



352 JAMES D. PHELAN. 



spond, to pay our debt of gratitude to the greatest musical 
composer of the century. 

There are tongues which we do not understand, but music 
is the common language of the world, and when Verdi speaks 
to us, our emotions — sensitive to his art — hearken to the 
voice of the master. We understand him; we answer his 
passionate appeals; we rejoice in his triumphs; we bend to his 
reproof. He sings of the life of man in the exalted cadences 
of the lyric muse, stirring to action the slumbering soul or 
faltering heart. His is the sublimation of eloquence. 

As the faculties of man are God-given, he who employs 
them in their highest perfection must best be serving God. 
The genius who creates is like unto Divinity. The power 
which can awaken love and fear, pity and remorse, by the 
varying strains of his music, mysteriously persuasive, re- 
sembles the voice of conscience and suggests the spirit which 
dominates the universe. That is the pinnacle of human at- 
tainment. That is the consummation of art. 

It is not the wealth of a Croesus nor the despotic sway of a 
Caesar that excites our real wonder or admiration: it is the 
triumph of thought; it is the assertion of the mastery of the 
mind. It is not the mere pomp of power or the luxury of 
wealth, it is the influence of the true and the beautiful, that 
betokens the progress of civilization. There is no compulsion 
of tyrants in our appreciation of Verdi's art. It is the alle- 
giance of love. 

Who was this Italian boy who lived to rank in his sphere 
with the greatest of mankind? He was born eighty-six years 
ago, in the duchy of Parma, of poor parents, who kept a vil- 
lage store. He enjoyed no adventitious advantages, yet rose 
rapidly in a profession in which he was encouraged by musi- 
cal friends, and again seriousty discouraged in his nineteenth 
year by his rejection at the Conservatory of Milan. 

But perseverance kindled his native talents, — in fact, it has 
been said that genius is nothing but hard work, — until he was 
able to refuse the highest decoration proffered by his King. 
He was singularly independent, and sought only the approval 
of the people; hence it is safe to say that his music will live, 
because it is the expression of human nature. He did not, 






VERDI MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 353 

like others, endeavor to create a taste by which he would be 
enjoyed. 

He gave poetry to life, and lifted it from sordid ways to 
hopefulness and enthusiasm, and the people rose to their 
leader. His first operas were introduced with difficulty, which 
all beginners experience; but the Italian ear, long trained in 
musical composition, and with inherited taste from of old, 
accepted Verdi as a master. When once known, he was there- 
after loved. 

He is classed by the critics as the head of the Italian ro- 
mantic school. It is claimed for Rossini, his distinguished 
countryman, that he was more of the classical, as his operas, 
with which we are familiar, will testify, — The Barber of Seville 
and William Tell. Another countryman, and also a contem- 
porary, perhaps influenced them more, — Donezetti, whose 
Lucia di Lammermoor, La Favorita, and Don Pasquale have 
entertained us so often, even in this modest temple. 

Bellini had composed his great works before Verdi fairly 
began his career; but his La Sonnambula, Norma, and / Puri- 
tani found favor with his rising countryman. 

But just as Ford, and Massinger, and Beaumont and Fletcher 
preceded Shakespeare, so Rossini, Donezetti, and Bellini her- 
alded the coming of Verdi, who was to surpass them all. 

It has been alleged that Wagner also influenced Verdi's 
later work, but eminent critics dispute this. Wagner is mainly 
dramatic. He fits the strain to the language. He subordi- 
nates the music to his subject. One critic states that, in Italian 
opera, music and melody are the prime considerations. Under 
the Wagnerian teaching, the full and right dramatic expres- 
sion became the chief aim, and that involved a subserviency 
of the thoughtful in music. It is the difference between Byron 
and Ossian. 

If this be true, it is Verdi who has preserved consistently 
the beautiful in music against the incursions of the more 
\ robust school of the north, which no doubt has excellent 
claims for the consideration of its peculiar style. All we can 
ask ourselves is, however, What pleases us most? The popu- 
lar verdict will support the sweetness and the beauty of the 
Italian school, which appeals, not to the dramatic in our 
nature so much as to the homely joys and common pleasures, 



354 JAMES D. PHELAN. 

which fill so much of our daily life, — " not too bright and good 
for human nature's daily food." It comes to our doors, and 
does not violently translate us to strange places or to rude 
peoples possessing rudimentary manners. Loving is wooing, 
and persuasion, and gentleness; not declamation and terror! 

When one is mad and tempestuous in love, jealousy, or 
anger, he may go to Wagner, and storm like the gods in their 
wrath. Wagner wrote of an age half-barbaric; Verdi, of culti- 
vated and civilized life; but in A'ida he showed his Wagnerian 
capacity for the treatment of strong and fearful natures that 
characterize the untamed spirit of the old Egyptians. 

What versatility! What capacity! Of Verdi's thirty operas, 
his Shakespearean Falstaff (which many assert is his greatest 
composition) was written by him at the age of eighty-one. 
The critics say that in form, harmonization, and orchestration 
it is his masterpiece. 

The first period of his work is illustrated by Nubucco, I Lom- 
bardi, and Ernani; the second, by Rigoletto, La Traviata, and 
II Trovatore; and the third and greatest period, showing his 
full development, by the operas A'ida, Otello, and Falstaff. 

Whatever may be the judgment of mere critics, who, after 
all, compose but a small portion of an audience, the melodies 
of Rigoletto, La Traviata, and II Trovatore will, as now, reach 
the popular heart of succeeding generations, and from St. 
Petersburg to San Francisco the music will be sung as long as 
love lasts, — and love is the dominant, ineradicable, and neces- 
sary passion of the world; and after life is fled, the strains of 
the master, still true to human nature, it is said, will linger 
somewhere between the angels and the demons, and will pos- 
sess, even then, power to mollify the pangs of perdition. Does 
not Owen Meredith sing, — 

" Of all the operas that Verdi wrote, 
The best, to my taste, is II Trovatore, 
And Mario can soothe with a tenor note 
The souls in Purgatory " ? 

But death will not silence his voice. His songs will be sung 
forever and aye, and his disciples will lovingly take up his 
work. When Mascagni, his countryman, produced the Caval- 
leria Rusticana, Verdi said, " I can die in peace, now that Mas- 
cagni has produced his opera." 



VERDI MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 355 

After a remarkable life, during which he raised high the 
standard of art, created music which is chanted and applauded 
by the world, patriotically championing his country's cause, 
and benevolently giving his vast fortune for the care of the 
old musicians, whose inspired instruments had given voice and 
expression to the children of his soul, he died, at the age of 
fourscore years and six, honored and beloved, not alone by 
his countrymen, but by millions of men and women, who 
were, and are still, the daily recipients of his sublime messages, 
written in undying melody. 

That is immortality on this earth, — to live in one's creative 
works ; and it is the state wherein mortals most resemble the gods. 

Our Italian- American citizens perform a worthy service by 
commemorating their great names. Our country is made up 
of all nationalities, and therefore has a peculiar right to join 
in this expression of gratitude. Aye, there are special reasons: 
to Italy we are indebted for Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci; 
so we are wedded by discovery, as well as by name, — America, 
Columbia, — to that historic race. 

Italy is the home of Art and Science. From the Roman 
days to the present time, there has been a long succession of 
men of genius. Such names as Raphael, Michael Angelo, 
Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, and Galileo suggest the greatest 
achievements of the mind of man. 

There is much in the mountains and valleys, sky and sea, 
of beautiful Italy to inspire genius; and perhaps the physical 
joy of life in that favored land had much to do with the glory 
of her sons. 

In all physical respects, California resembles Italy. Our skies, 
our mountains, our valleys, are not less fair. May we not hope 
to emulate in Art and Science the older land, whose sons have 
done so much for the progress of the world, and whose unfad- 
ing beauty has self-conferred an immortality all its own? 

"Fair Italy! 
Thou art the garden of the world, the home 
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree ; 
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee? 
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste 
More rich than other climes' fertility ; 
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced 
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced." 



356 JAMES D. PHELAN. 



GOETHE-SCHILLER MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 

[Address made at the Goethe-Schiller memorial dedication, Golden 
Gate Park, August 11, 1901.] 

On behalf of the citizens of San Francisco, I accept this 
beautiful group of statuary from our German- American citi- 
zens, whose thoughtful generosity I desire, in the name of all 
our people, to gratefully acknowledge. 

This gift will suggest many things to the casual observer 
who seeks these shades for recreation. He will realize that 
San Francisco is a little world in itself. Men from every land 
have made it their home. They bring their culture and their 
skill as contributions to the city of which they have become, 
by right of citizenship, an active and patriotic part. Thus do 
we possess the spirit of every land, and proudly boast of our 
cosmopolitan character. 

Provincialism alone is a stranger within our gates. Liber- 
ality of thought and toleration of the views and customs of 
others have promoted that freedom and fellowship which dis- 
tinguishes us, even among American cities. 

Robert Louis Stevenson says of San Francisco, that it is 
"the smelting-pot of the races," — where the gold is separated 
from the dross. 

A new country has the splendid advantage of enjoying the 
thought and the work of all men who have gone before. We 
can select and appropriate the best. As the poet has written, 
we are "the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time." 
From these our possessions, the common property of mankind, 
we can draw at will. From the exalted position which it is 
our good fortune to thus occupy, native genius may soar, and 
on the sure foundation of past accomplishment native skill 
may safely build. 

To appropriate, however, the work of other men, or even to 
take the legacy which is ours, without expressing obligation to 
our benefactors, would prove us selfish and unworthy. So we 



I 



GOETHE-SCHILLER ADDRESS. 357 

are assembled to pay a tribute, which is the due of genius, to 
the master minds of Germany, Goethe and Schiller. 

They are part of our legacy. They are ours to-day, because 
we make them ours; their genius was so transcendent, that 
they belong to the world. But let us not deceive ourselves, 
for just as the father is proud of his sons, so prouder to-day 
than all is the land of their birth and its sons. Let us bow to 
the superior claims of German nationality. 

You, who came from Germany, speak for your native land, 
and I for our cosmopolitan city; but who shall speak for Art, 
for Poetry, and for Science? Who shall speak for the glory of 
mankind? Who is able to express fittingly the whole debt of 
gratitude we owe to mortals such as these? 

Yet, little did they dream, in the wildest imaginings of 
fancy's flight, that they would be honored by a monument 
in bronze by the far shores of the Pacific. But be it known to 
the lasting credit of their fellow-countrymen who have dis- 
tinguished themselves in the upbuilding of California, that 
although separated by sea and continent from the fatherland, 
they have, during their pilgrimage, carried within their hearts, 
as the ark of the covenant, their love and reverence for their 
country's greatest names. 

The highest criticism, as well as the popular regard, attest 
the inspired genius and personal worth of Goethe and Schiller. 
They should have our unreserved veneration. As men and as 
masters, they loved each other. This portrait group shall 
therefore stand for friendship as well as for fame. It will in- 
spire our youth. It will adorn our park as long as time shall 
spare it from the ravages of decay. Here, embowered among 
the flowers so dear to Goethe, it will serve to awaken our love of 
literature and our appreciation of its most brilliant exponents. 
Well has it been said that the history of literature is the his- 
tory of the human mind, — "the thoughts of thinking souls." 
Carlyle says of Goethe, that he was the most notable literary 
man for the last hundred years, and that he was his chosen 
hero among them all. "Out of his books the world rises 
imaged once more as godlike, the workmanship and temple of 
a god." 

We can best understand his position when we recall how 



358 JAMES D. PHELAN. 

dear to us is our Shakespeare, who has peopled our minds as 
with living men and women, representing every human pas- 
sion and emotion. He, their prototype, was venerated by 
Goethe and Schiller, and should stand by their side. Shake- 
speare, also, should have the homage of our city. 

Then let this monument be but the beginning of San Fran- 
cisco's tribute to the great minds of the world. Let this Con- 
cert Valley be a Temple of Fame. Then will the blooms of 
flowers and the voice of music, on every holiday, bespeak our 
gratitude and praise! 

We thank our German fellow-citizens for having suggested 
the thought and given it such beautiful expression in this 
work of their great sculptor, Rietschel, thus wedding Art, Lit- 
erature, and the fatherland in a common memorial. 

Apart from the conspicuous services which our citizens of 
German extraction have rendered this country in every field 
of human activity, why should not the German fatherland 
have a memorial? We have been accustomed to boast of our 
Anglo-Saxon civilization, and it is true the land of Shake- 
speare has given much to the world; but back of England were 
the races who have given that country its name as well as its 
distinction, — the Angles and the Saxons, — who were German 
tribes, and whose superior prowess wrested the possession of 
that country from the native Britons. 

So, whatever benefits have been conferred upon America by 
Anglo-Saxon civilization, its origin must be sought in the an- 
cestors of the men and women who here to-day glorify the 
greatest minds which the Teutonic people have developed. 

It is the blending of all peoples that has given supremacy 
to America, and therefore it is in a true American sense I ac- 
knowledge, on this occasion, our obligation and speak our 
thanks. 




[ 



P. A. BEEGEBOT. 

P. Alexandee Beegerot was born in San Francisco, February 5, 1867, 
of French parentage. He received his preliminary education in the 
public schools of San Francisco, graduating first from the Lincoln Gram- 
mar, and later from the Lowell High School. In both institutions he 
stood at the head of his class. He then went to France to perfect him- 
self in the French language. He graduated from the Lyceum of Pau, 
arid from the Bordeaux branch of the University of France, in 1889, 
with the degree of bachelor of letters. On his return to San Francisco 
in 1889, he took a complete course, under Professors E. W. McKinstry 
and Charles W. Slack, in the Hastings College of Law, ranking No. 1 on 
graduating therefrom. Since July, 1892, he has been actively engaged 
in the practice of his profession. He has an extensive business among 
both French and Americans throughout the state. In politics he has 
made himself popular and well known by his services and speeches for 
the Republican party, and in his advocacy of pure politics. He has 
been a member of the Republican State Committee occasionally, and of 
many state and municipal conventions. He was a member of the recent 
charter convention of San Francisco. In 1893 he was called upon to de- 
liver an oration in English at the celebration of the Fourteenth of July 
in San Francisco. In 1894 he delivered the funeral oration, in English, 
at the Mechanics' Pavilion, before an audience of over ten thousand 
people, on the occasion of the obsequies held in memory of the mur- 
dered President, Carnot. In 1897 he was selected president of the day 
for the Fourteenth of July celebration, and in 1890 grand French orator 
of the day. In 1898 he was elected school director on the Republican 
ticket and chosen president of the Board of Education of San Francisco. 

PERSONAL AND POLITICAL INTERFERENCE WITH 
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SCHOOL AFFAIRS. 

[Address delivered while president of the Board of Education of San 
Francisco, at the annual session of the California Teachers' Association, 
held at Sacramento, December 27, 1899.] 

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen, — I feel not a little 
hesitation in approaching the subject now under discussion. 
Admirable, no doubt, as our educational institutions are as a 
whole, yet I am convinced that personal and political interfer- 

359 



360 P. A. BEKGEHOT. 

ence with the administration of school affairs has constituted 
to this day a great obstacle in the progressive march of our 
public school system and in the natural development of our 
educational ideas. By what means or agencies, by what legis- 
lative efforts, can that pernicious influence be minimized? 
And I say minimized, because, in the very nature of things, 
and given the inherent imperfection of man, it can never be 
entirely eliminated. That is the difficult problem which will 
confront the coming generation for solution. In view of my 
limited experience in educational matters, and surrounded as 
I am by the best trained minds in the state, I consider it 
rather bold on my part to venture a few rambling suggestions 
on this subject; but I submit them for what they are worth, in 
the hope that they may perhaps contain the germs of the ulti- 
mate process which may lead up to a satisfactory determina- 
tion of this vexed question. 

Let us begin by inquiring what are the chief causes of the 
evil which we are seeking to eradicate; for if we can ascertain 
the origin and extent of the evil, it will be comparatively easy 
to discover a, or the, remedy or palliative for it. 

The most prolific causes of the political interference with the 
administration of school affairs can be reduced to the follow- 
ing enumeration: 1. The election of school directors by popu- 
lar vote, without regard to their special fitness for the special 
work they have to perform; 2. The defective methods of grant- 
ing certificates to teachers by county and city boards of exami- 
nation, upon examinations prepared and conducted by them 
without any control or supervision on the part of any superior 
authority; 3. The lack of uniformity in the legislation govern- 
ing our school affairs and the election of teachers; 4. The lack 
of uniformity in the courses of studies prepared for the vari- 
ous classes of our schools; 5. The disparity in the tenure of 
office of teachers; and lastly, the lack of a general pension 
law sufficiently generous in its provisions and applicable to 
every public school teacher in the state, whether of the uni- 
versity, high-school, grammar, or primary-school grade. 

The first three causes mentioned in the enumeration just 
given are perhaps, from a political point of view, produc- 
tive of more harm to our public schools than any others. 



INTERFERENCE WITH SCHOOL AFFAIRS. 361 

Many teachers find their way into our public schools, thanks 
to their kinship with some school director or trustee, or through 
considerations of friendship or political influence. Many per- 
sons also succeed in securing certificates at the hands of boards 
of examiners by unfair means, such as the purchased conni- 
vance of some member of the board of examiners. Teachers, 
otherwise possessing the highest qualifications, are often 
obliged to secure their election into a school department by 
the power of the almighty dollar, when other less praiseworthy 
means are not resorted to. Most of these evils may be cured 
to some extent, either directly by legislation, or indirectly by 
educating public opinion against the proposition of electing 
teachers unless they are entitled to the position by their merits 
or by successful experience. But any and all remedies that 
do not aim to correct not only these abuses, but also any others 
which may be the logical consequence of any imperfection in 
our legislation or in our educational systems, would accom- 
plish no permanent relief, no practical good. 

The other causes mentioned in my enumeration are suffi- 
ciently explicit to need no amplification or explanation to be 
clearly understood. 

Now, I believe that the nationalization of our educational in- 
stitutions, so far as practicable or consistent with state rights 
and state educational autonomy, and their centralization in 
the various states, under the general operation of a uniform 
system of laws, state or Federal, would have perhaps the most 
powerful tendency to eliminate the evil influence of politics 
from the administration of school affairs, and would, at the 
same time, endow our nation, or our state, with an educational 
system which would be proof against any violent political or 
revolutionary innovations, and which would be amenable to 
all the laws of evolutionary progress. 

In order to illustrate my meaning, and to make the perhaps 
confused appearance of my thought a little clearer, permit me, 
by way of example, to elaborate, on the spur of the moment, a 
typical plan of organization for our public school system as I 
would like to see it established in theory and enforced in 
practice. 

I would, in the first place, advocate the establishment of a 



362 P- A. BERGEROT. 

national educational department at Washington, directed and 
controlled by a minister of public instruction, in conjunction 
with a council of nine secretaries or deputies. I would divide 
the United States into nine educational jurisdictions, each 
being represented by one deputy in the national council. I 
would prescribe that the nine secretaries or deputies, forming 
the national council, should be elected from among the presi- 
dents of the various state universities, by the professors thereof 
in general meeting assembled for that purpose, at such times 
or places as might be fixed by law. If there should be any 
objection to this mode of selection, they might be appointed 
by the minister of public instruction. These deputies would 
hold office for nine years, and would receive a salary commen- 
surate with the high importance and character of their posi- 
tion. The council should be so organized that three members 
would go out of office every three years, and no member 
should be eligible for re-election after having served two terms 
of office. 

The functions or duties of the national educational council 
would naturally be very complex, and would require for their 
intelligent and successful exercise the possession of abilities of 
the highest order, coupled with considerable practical experi- 
ence in matters educational. If the members of the council 
should be selected, as suggested, from among the presidents of 
the state universities, the personnel of the council, as a natural 
consequence, would be made up of the very best intellectual, 
professional, and executive material obtainable in the land. 

This centralized system of national education would con- 
template the establishment of a national university, to which 
would be admitted only the graduates of the various state uni- 
versities, or all applicants successfully passing examinations 
held at the seat of the university, and being of equal difficulty 
and importance as the examinations for graduation given by 
the state universities. The object of the creation of this 
national university would be to fill a great desideratum by 
providing our state universities with competent professors, 
specially trained and fitted for university work of the broad- 
est character. This national university would, of course, be 
under the exclusive jurisdiction and management of the min- 



INTERFERENCE WITH SCHOOL AFFAIRS. 363 

ister of public instruction and of the national educational 
council. 

Subsidiary, but subject to this supreme council, my plan 
would also involve the creation of nine or more district coun- 
cils, each district to comprise from five to seven states and to 
have jurisdiction over the educational concerns in their respec- 
tive districts. These subsidiary bodies would be formed by a 
process of selection, to be devised or agreed upon, from among 
the best professors in the universities existing in the various 
states constituting the jurisdictional district. 

This national system of education, with all its ramifications, 
could in time be administered with all the smoothness of a 
perfect, well-regulated mechanism of the most intricate char- 
acter. One of the principal features of this scheme of educa- 
tion, as I conceive it, would be the adoption and enforcement 
of uniform regulations for the certification of teachers in all 
the states, and the adoption of uniform curricula and of uni- 
form methods and theories of instruction in all the schools of 
the land. The different courses of study for all schools, acade- 
mies, and colleges of the various educational districts would be 
prescribed by the national council, with the advice and upon 
the recommendation of the district councils. All professional 
colleges and all technical and training schools would form a 
constituent part of this system, and the different educational 
departments could be co-ordinated in such a way that a per- 
fect gradation could be observed, from the inceptive period in 
the kindergarten to the culminating point in the national 
university. 

It is evident that a monumental structure of this kind could 
not be built in a day, nor perhaps in a generation, but the 
centralization and classification of the multiple agencies of 
education could be molded gradually into a grand, harmonious, 
conglomerate institution, susceptible of change or improvement, 
according to the varying exigencies of civilization. 

Another no less important feature of this plan would be the 
incorporation in it of a generous pension law, of general opera- 
tion, requiring all teachers of the nation, or of the state, to 
share in its burdens as well as in its benefits, and providing 
that, after the beneficiaries shall have taught for a period of at 



364 P- A. BERGEROT. 

least thirty years in the public schools, they shall be retired, 
nolens volens, upon a salary sufficient to enable them to live in 
comparative comfort. 

Under this system, better than under any other, it might be 
possible to obtain an ideal set of teachers and professors, 
through competitive examinations. No one could be elected 
into any school department unless he were provided with 
proper credentials, and except after having successfully passed 
such examinations as might be given by the supreme district 
or national authority, from time to time. All teachers would 
be selected from the list of successful candidates every year, 
either indiscriminately or in the order of merit or percentage, 
and would be conditionally elected for a probationary term of 
at least five years, subject to removal at any time during the 
period of probation in the event of adverse reports. I would 
insist upon combining the competitive examination idea with 
the requirement of a long probationary term, for the reason 
that it might prove to be a very unsatisfactory experiment to 
rely alone for good teaching material upon competitive exami- 
nations, as it is a well-established fact that it is not always the 
teacher who secures the highest credits upon examinations 
who possesses the greatest ability to teach or to impart knowl- 
edge. 

Through the exercise of scientific methods of supervision 
during the probationary term, it would be possible for prin- 
cipals, under such a plan, to single out the various classes of 
inefficient teachers. If the proper authorities found the re- 
ports against the inefficients to be well founded, the teachers 
in fault would be immediately dismissed without fear or favor. 
At the end of the probationary period only, and after having 
complied with all requirements as to experience work, the 
teacher would then, as a matter of right and law, be entitled 
to permanent election into the department to which he might 
aspire to belong, and would hold office, subject to removal only 
for statutory grounds, for thirty years, exclusive of the proba- 
tionary term. This process of pruning, I believe, would cor- 
rect many existing abuses in our educational systems, and, in 
addition, would result in the production of an ideal class of 
teachers. With the co-operation of just such a class of high- 



INTERFERENCE WITH SCHOOL AFFAIRS. 365 

minded, broad-souled educators, the public school system of 
our country could be made to attain an eminence and to gain 
a superiority bordering on perfection which would distinguish 
us, the world over, for our model educational organization. 

Now, the same plan which I have thus proposed and thus 
briefly outlined for a national educational system, subject to 
modifications, could be made a state institution, if for any 
constitutional reasons it could not be adopted by Congress. I 
am inclined to think that an organization of that kind, deriv- 
ing its main strength from the principle of centralization, 
and containing, in a state of more complete development, the 
salient features to which I have adverted, would perhaps con- 
tribute more than any other means to elevate our educational 
standards and to nullify to a great extent all attempts at 
political or personal interference with the administration of 
our school affairs. And I verily believe that we shall never 
be one people, united, from one end of the land to the other, 
by the same community of ideas and animated by the same 
quality of patriotism, — we shall never be a homogeneous na- 
tion, with but one mind, one heart, one ideal, — until from the 
chaotic condition of our educational systems we shall succeed 
in evolving a uniform scheme of education, enforced by a per- 
fectly co-ordinated administrative hierarchy. 



366 P- A. BERGEROT. 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT SADI MARIE CARNOT. 

[Funeral oration delivered at the Mechanics' Pavilion, San Francisco, 
July 1, 1894, on the occasion of the obsequies held in memory of Presi- 
dent Carnot.] 

President Carnot is dead, but the republic still lives! An 
immense, a profound sorrow has settled upon the French Re- 
public, and upon her children dispersed over various points 
on the globe. In the untimely and tragical death of her chief 
magistrate, France has been bereft of her foremost citizen, and 
the world of a great and good man. There is not an American 
or a republican anywhere who does not participate with all his 
heart in the grief which has befallen the French Republic, and 
sincerely deplore the bereavement of the family of her mar- 
tyred President. How true indeed is the sentiment that great 
sorrows or calamities make the whole world kin. The assas- 
sination of the good King Henry the Fourth by Ravaillac, un- 
der precisely similar circumstances, that of Lincoln by Booth, 
and of Garfield by Guiteau, aroused universal feelings of sym- 
pathy and regret, regardless of creed, politics, or nationality. 
Such foul murders, and especially murders like the one we are 
now deploring, committed without malice, without any definite 
purpose, in cool, deliberate blood, fill us at times with an irre- 
sistible desire to shake off the attributes of humanity, and to 
annihilate the perpetrators like so many wild beasts of the 
jungle. True it is, that the names of these glorious victims to 
the cause of liberty will be remembered and cherished so long 
as there is language to express emotional praise for all that is 
admirable in personal character or in illustrious statesman- 
ship. True it is, that when their virtues are spoken of, the 
manner of their accursed taking off will recur to our minds, 
indelibly associated with the names of the infamous villains 
who deprived two great nations of their best and purest citi- 
zens. But such crimes, no matter how deep the abhorrence in 
which we may hold their authors, are nevertheless a terrible 



DEATH OF PRESIDENT CARNOT. 367 

commentary upon the depravity of the human beings who 
commit them, and make us sometimes question the verity of 
the Biblical theory concerning our creation, and even doubt 
the very existence of a Divine providence. 

The sympathetic speaker who has just preceded me has elo- 
quently and feelingly extolled the eminent private and public 
virtues and the exalted traits of character of your departed 
President. Let mine be now the task of adverting briefly to 
the country in whose service he died, and upon the liberties 
which he labored so faithfully, by the example of a virtuous 
life and the exercise of uncommon executive abilities, to estab- 
lish on a firm and enduring basis. 

Fellow-republicans of France, across the continent and the 
Atlantic, California sincerely extends to your compatriots the 
fraternal hand of sympathy and condolence. Their prosperity 
and happiness are as dear to us, their sorrows and misfortunes 
as deeply felt, as our own. In this supreme hour of your na- 
tional bereavement, which makes us all brothers to-day, we 
are forcibly impressed with the fact that the spirit of human 
liberty and of free government, nurtured and grown into 
strength and beauty in America, has at last found an abiding- 
place in the French mind. There is not a statesman in France 
at this moment who is so deerjly pervaded with that spirit as 
was Carnot. In one of his public utterances in 1891, 1 remem- 
ber that President Carnot made the characteristic republican 
profession of faith, that " in France there are no longer men, 
but only institutions." The same thing may be said of 
America. This sentiment is unmistakably a conclusive proof 
of the permanence and stability of the French and American 
republics. Aye, the whole world is now regarding the Third 
Republic of France, thanks to the good and disinterested work 
of such patriots as Thiers, Gambetta, Carnot, with deep and 
solicitous concern, bordering on admiration. The truth is 
slowly but surely coming home to those nations which had 
despaired of her fate, that if the Third Republic has become so 
strong and powerful in spite of the great disasters of 1870, she 
owes this happy result to the practical application of republi- 
can principles to her institutions and to the devotion of such 
men as I have named. 



368 P. A. BERGEROT. 

The partisans of the monarchy and of the empire used to 
take a fiendish delight, even until within a few years ago, in 
giving currency to the monstrous falsehood that the Third 
Republic was responsible for the increase of the public debt to 
the sum of over twenty billions of francs; but in their malevo- 
lence they forgot to tell us that this enormous debt was almost 
entirely a legacy bequeathed to her by previous governments. 
Out of the. twenty billions charged to the credit of the repub- 
lic, there are seventeen billions and a half which are traceable 
to the First Empire, the monarchy, and the Second Empire, 
which these governments expended exclusively for war. What 
use, on the other hand, has the Third Republic made of the 
few billions she has borrowed since 1870, besides paying the 
interest on the debts bequeathed to her? 

At the close of the war of 1870, vanquished as she was, ap- 
parently dismembered and ruined, with herculean energy and 
indomitable courage France put her shoulders to the great 
task of reconstructing and reorganizing her institutions from 
top to bottom. No other country on the face of the earth, sim- 
ilarly situated, except a republic, could have withstood or out- 
lived the effects of such a shock. In the course of a few years, 
by the aid of such men as Thiers, Gambetta, Ferry, and many 
others, her means of national defense attained such perfection 
and strength as to inspire fear in the very hearts of her foes. 
From that time onward she bent all her skill and resources 
and her wonderful genius in extending and developing her 
railways, canals, and ports; in building up and fostering her 
commerce and her countless industries; and in ameliorating 
and perfecting her educational system in its various branches 
and degrees. Strong with new-born vigor, France very soon 
arose from the momentary chaos and demoralization brought 
about by the war of 1870 to the exalted position of eminence 
and superiority she now occupies in the sisterhood of nations. 
However strong may still be her desire to regain her lost prov- 
inces, largely through the pacific and conciliatory character of 
her lamented President she has outgrown the narrow spirit of 
revenge and retaliation which marked the early years of her 
existence under the Third Republic. Peace, and not war, is 
now her sole end and purpose, and her dominant thought. 






DEATH OF PRESIDENT CARNOT. 369 

I have great confidence in the good moral sense and in the 
exalted patriotism of your compatriots. Unalterably attached 
to the social and political conquests which they have achieved 
since the Revolution, they will never again, I hope, suffer any 
one to lay a dictatorial hand upon their liberties. And it is 
because I am firmly convinced of the irresistible force for good 
of republican principles, and of their efficiency to secure us in- 
dividual rights, social relations, and good moral order, that I 
believe the day is not far distant when we shall witness the 
final issue of the great duel waged for centuries past between 
prerogative and liberty. Upon that day, the task begun in 
1789 shall be consummated. France shall be one and indi- 
visible. She will have realized the fondest dreams of him 
whose death we are now mourning. Free from all warlike pre- 
occupations, she will be in a position to apply her marvelous 
activity exclusively to the works of peace, which have always 
won for her the admiration of the world. But to compass that 
alluring goal, so ardently sought by Carnot, your compatriots 
must make a complete abstraction of their quarrels and petty 
rivalries. The Revolution is certainly broad enough to receive 
all republicans within the circle of her benign influence, and 
to inspire them all with a manly sentiment of national recon- 
ciliation. Let them always treasure in their hearts the wise 
counsels given them by Adolphe Thiers, who took so large a 
part in the foundation of the Third Republic, that it is impos- 
sible to refer to her without speaking of him. When Monsieur 
Thiers, the first President of the Third Republic, reached the 
end of his History of the Consulate and the Empire, — that im- 
perishable monument erected by him to the glory of his 
country rather than to the towering genius of Napoleon, — he 
crowned his masterpiece with an exclamation teeming with the 
purest patriotism. " No matter," wrote he, " how great, exalted, 
or vast soever the genius of any one man may be, the destinies 
of a country must never be completely surrendered into his 
hands." It is with those admirable words that I wish to close, 
— words of political wisdom, if ever there were any, that I 
would like to see deeply instilled in every French mind, that 
they might be convinced that they must never alienate their 
liberties. In a solemn moment of national sorrow and be- 



370 P. A. BERGEROT. 

reavement like the one which has gathered us here with a 
touching unanimity of purpose, I would say to your compa- 
triots, that the best way in which they can love their country 
and their country's flag, and assure the perpetuity and the 
ever-increasing grandeur of her republican institutions, is to 
imitate the life and the example of their martyred President. 
Let them always indignantly frown down and frustrate all at- 
tempts to encroach upon their liberties, or to enfeeble the 
sacred ties which make them now one and indivisible. Let 
them to-day, upon the altar of their country and in the pres- 
ence of a tomb which closes over a life devoted to the father- 
land, renew their undying faith in free institutions and their 
allegiance to the principles upon which they are based; Presi- 
dents then may come and may go, but the Republic will endure 
forever! 



TIREY LAFAYETTE FORD. 

Tirey L. Ford was born on a farm in Monroe County, Missouri, 
December 29, 1857. He came to California in February, 1877, and, 
after various experiences as farm-hand and student of law, was ad- 
mitted to practice law. He settled in Downieville, Sierra County. 
He was twice elected to the office of district attorney. In 1892 he 
was elected state senator, and in 1898 was elected attorney-general 
of the state, resigning the latter office in 1902 to become the general 
counsel of the United Eailroads of San Francisco. General Ford 
has figured in many important legal cases, and has achieved re- 
markable success for so young a man. He is one of the most popu- 
lar and effective speakers in the West. His voice has splendid timbre, 
his personality is magnetic, his reasoning logical and forceful. 

A TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM McKINLEY. 

[Delivered at opening meeting of campaign in San Francisco, August 
26, 1896.] 

Not in the heat and turmoil of an excited and excitable 
convention, not under the hypnotic spell of impassioned elo- 
quence, was William McKinley chosen the standard-bearer of 
the Republican party. From the quiet of a million firesides, 
from anxious faces in the workshop, in the factory, and in all 
the industrial pursuits of a great nation, came the ceaseless and 
irresistible demand for Protection's greatest general. Like the 
onward flow of some mighty river, the steady current of public 
opinion swept aside all obstacles, and yielded not to the skill 
and energy of those who would turn it from its true course. 
The greatest political leaders of the age strove in vain to check 
the popular will and to divert it into other channels, but they 
failed, utterly failed. Far over against the morning sun, in 
the old Pine Tree State, a prince of parliamentarians, a born 
leader of men, saw his high ambition buried beneath the rising 
tide that all New England was powerless to resist. The great 
Empire State, with all its wealth and power, and with the 
prestige of a popular chief executive, was compelled to bow 

371 



372 TIEEY L. FORD. 

before the determined will of an earnest people. From the 
Keystone State came that master of American politics, whose 
genius for organization has carried his name throughout the 
length and breadth of the land, and he, too, like all the rest 
who broke a lance against McKinley's shield, surrendered to 
the all-pervading sentiment that swept our country with such 
resistless force. Nor did that grand and rugged statesman of 
the West, the favorite son of great and glorious Iowa, meet 
with any greater measure of success. All, all, were made to 
stand aside for the chosen leader of a determined people. 

Never did a nomination for the high office of President 
come more directly from the hearts of the people, and never 
was a nomination more fittingly bestowed. A youth of toil 
and frugal industry had opened the heart and mind of Wil- 
liam McKinley to the necessities of American labor in its 
ruinous competition with the ill-paid labor of other lands, 
while as a soldier he mastered the art of war and gave the 
noblest proof of a patriot's loyal love. As a member of the 
national Congress for fourteen years, he conquered the details 
of legislation and rose to the proud position of leader in the 
Lower House of Congress; while as governor of his native state 
he displayed an executive ability that demonstrated his fitness 
for the high position he now seeks. 

Above all, as a husband he has given to the world a sublime 
example of that high ideal which embraces all of manly devo- 
tion, sacred love, and a tenderness unrivaled among men. 

Such, in brief, is the man whose name the Eepublican party 
presents to the nation and for whom we speak to-night; a man 
developed and disciplined in that severest of all schools, — ad- 
versity, — and who represents in its true sense the highest and 
best type of American manhood. 

We present to you to-night no gilded flowers of polished 
rhetoric, no spectacular creation of the wizard's brain, no crown 
of thorns, no cross of gold; but we present to you a man who 
knows and feels the needs of this great country and of all her 
people; who scorns the false and shallow efforts of the dema- 
gogue to array one class of citizens against another, or the 
more despicable attempt to divide our people along geographi- 
cal lines; who recognizes in every citizen an American free- 



A TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM McKINLEY. 373 

man, and whose great heart beats warmly for the humblest 
citizen in the land. 

Citizens of San Francisco and of California, we ask you to 
seriously consider the grave and far-reaching issues of the 
campaign upon which we are now entering; and when election- 
day shall have arrived, and you come to exercise the highest 
duty of a citizen, we ask you to vote for the American home 
and all that it implies, for the American laborer in his struggle 
against the sharp competition which a low tariff has forced 
upon him, for American industry, for national honor and na- 
tional prosperity, — in short, for him who typifies all these, 
and more, William McKinley of Ohio. 



374 TIREY L. FORD. 



SPEECH ON NATIONAL ISSUES. 

[Delivered at Petaluma, Sonoma County, California, on the evening 
of the day next preceding the Presidential election of 1900.] 

In a government such as ours, where Lazarus and Dives 
elbow each other at the voting-booth, where the people make 
and enforce their own laws, and where every citizen has a voice 
in governmental affairs, the ballot-box must ever be the peace- 
ful arbiter of conflicting opinions respecting public measures 
and public policies. To the end that the will of the people may- 
be wisely and intelligently expressed, it is necessary that the 
voter should fully and completely understand the issues which 
he is called upon to determine. The press is a potent educator 
in this behalf. It brings to the fireside of the man of toil, as 
well as to the library of the rich, a daily record of the world's 
events, and spreads out before the voter the facts from which 
his conclusions must be drawn. But, notwithstanding the op- 
portunities for enlightenment that lie on every hand, it is well 
for us to come together occasionally, to meet one another face 
to face, and in friendly deliberation discuss the vital questions 
that affect the welfare of the state, and which at the ballot-box 
must engage our best and our most earnest thoughts. In these 
discussions and debates, however, we should ever keep in mind 
the fact that we are all citizens of a common country, and that 
all honest and patriotic men have but one hope, one purpose, 
one ideal, in view, and that the peace and the prosperity of 
the nation and the comfort and the happiness of its citizens. 
While we all agree as to the ultimate result to be attained, we 
may not always agree as to the best means of reaching that 
result. Hence we divide along political lines and organize 
into political parties. It is right that every citizen should ally 
himself with that political party with the principles and poli- 
cies of which he is most nearly in accord. It is right that he 
should interest himself in the welfare of that party, and strain 
every nerve and sinew to bring victory to the cause where his 



SPEECH ON NATIONAL ISSUES. 375 

allegiance has been placed. But, let me add, in so doing he 
must not forget that this is a nation of freemen. He must 
not forget that every other citizen possesses in like degree the 
same inestimable and inalienable right to hold and express 
his own opinion at all times upon all public questions. He 
must pause to consider before he impugns the motives of his 
fellow-citizens, and must weigh well his words before attempt- 
ing to vilify or abuse the candidates of his party adversary. 

A cause that relies upon abuse for its advancement, or a 
candidate who appeals to the passions or the prejudices of the 
people, ought to be, and sooner or later will be, voted into 
well-deserved political oblivion. 

It is with profound regret that I have observed in this 
campaign an effort to array one class of our citizens against 
another. I had hoped that in a campaign fraught with such 
tremendous consequences to our common country, reason alone 
might guide us through the conflict of political debate. Abuse 
is not argument, but rather indicates a lack of it. It is the 
last resort of the small mind, that feels the hurt of the logic of 
its adversary, and unwittingly admits the weakness of its own 
cause. Appeals to passion or to prejudice have no rightful 
place in political debate, and are wholly at variance with that 
high sense of political honor and statesmanship to which alone 
we may with safety intrust the welfare of a free people. 

I believe that the principles and policies of the Republican 
party are the principles and policies that are best adapted to 
the needs of our country, and I will briefly indicate to you 
some of the reasons that have impelled me to this belief. As 
was said by the famous Virginian patriot, "I have but one 
lamp, by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of 
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by 
the past." Looking into that past with impartial eyes, and 
weighing with jealous care the great good that has come to our 
nation through the instrumentality of the Republican party, 
even from the day it first came into power, I am unable to 
reach but one conclusion, and that is, that this party has 
written upon our history its brightest pages; that it has at all 
times and under every circumstance proven true to the people 
and to the trusts reposed in it. Travel back with me, if you 



376 TIREY L. FORD. 

please, over our country's history for a period of forty years, 
covering a third of our nation's life. At the further end of 
that period we see a young and vigorous party struggling for 
recognition, and soliciting for its principles the approval and 
support of thinking men. At the head of its small column of 
patriots is carried the banner bearing the legend, " Protection 
to American labor and American industries," — a principle, 
my friends, that has ever been its guiding star throughout its 
long and honorable career. At this time we see our govern- 
ment in the hands of a Democratic administration, with Presi- 
dent Buchanan at its head. We listen to that President as, 
in December, 1857, in his first annual message, he pictures to 
Congress the deplorable condition into which our nation had 
fallen. In his annual message of that year he said: "With 
unsurpassed plenty in all the productions and all the elements 
of material wealth, we find our manufactures suspended, our 
public works retarded, our private enterprises abandoned, and 
thousands of useful laborers thrown out of employment and 
reduced to want. . . . Under these conditions a loan may be 
required." 

In fact, a loan was required, and in a time of peace our 
national debt began to increase rapidly. Nor did conditions 
improve with the advancing months of the Buchanan ad- 
ministration. Rather did they grow worse. In his last mes- 
sage to Congress, in December 1860, Buchanan said: "Panic 
and distress of a fearful character prevail throughout the land. 
Our laboring population is without employment, and conse- 
quently deprived of the means of earning their bread. Indeed, 
all hope seems to have deserted the minds of men." 

Added to this deplorable condition of our country's indus- 
trial affairs were the ominous mutterings of discontent and 
the fearful dread of a threatened rebellion. 

Suddenly the scene changes. The young and vigorous Re- 
publican party has risen like a lusty champion, has overcome 
all opposition, and wrenched control of the national adminis- 
tration from the hands of incompetency. The dark days of 
the Rebellion come upon us with all the attending horrors, but 
followed, thank God, by a happy termination of the most 
gigantic and stubbornly contested war of modern times. How 



SPEECH ON NATIONAL ISSUES. 377 

successfully this great trial was met by this newly born party 
the world knows. Never before was such a task committed to 
human hands. Never before was such a task more grandly 
performed. Not only was the Union saved, but, through the 
wise policy of the Republican party, out of a people who had 
fought in years of bitterness, out of groups of states "discor- 
dant and belligerent," was molded a new and harmonious 
nation, while all civilization looked on in amazement at the 
sudden transformation from disastrous war to prosperous 
peace. 

As we look, the scene broadens and beautifies until our 
nation, again reunited, reconstructed, and reinvigorated, moves 
steadily forward in wealth, in population, and in prosperity, 
until it stands at the very head and front of the nations of 
earth, compelling the admiration of an astonished world. 
Though clouds occasionally obscured the horizon, they could 
not long withstand the sunshine of prosperity that spread its 
warmth throughout the land. Never since the beginning of 
time has the world witnessed a parallel to the marvelous 
growth in population and prosperity which took place in 
America between the day the immortal Lincoln assumed the 
reins of government in 1861 and the time Benjamin Harrison 
relinquished them to Democratic hands in 1893. 

Contrast, if you please, the doleful language of President 
Buchanan when he bade adieu to his official labors, with a 
treasury depleted, with national expenditures far exceeding 
national receipts, with industries paralyzed, with idle labor 
jostling hunger on the streets, with discontent and want and 
hunger everywhere, — contrast his message, if you please, with 
the buoyant and glowing words of President Harrison as he 
holds up to the world the inestimable blessings and bountiful 
prosperity that had come to our country under Republican 
rule. In the closing year of his administration, in December, 
1892, President Harrison, with the deliberate solemnity of an 
annual message, said: "A comparison of the existing condi- 
tions with those of the most favored period in the history of 
the country will, I believe, show that so high a degree of pros- 
perity and so general a diffusion of the comforts of life were 
never before enjoyed by our people." 



378 TIREY L. FORD. 

We had reached the zenith of earthly greatness. Towering 
high above all other nations of earth, America had reached 
an eminence where, secure in the prosperity of her own people, 
she could with complacency view the turmoils and troubles of 
other lands. But, alas! the scene again suddenly changes. 
In an unguarded moment the American people were per- 
suaded to return to power the same party that had left our 
country in so deplorable a condition some thirty years before. 
Obedient, in part, to that peculiar and unexplainable desire 
for a "change" that unfortunately abides with many of our 
people, and with the thought, no doubt, that the Republican 
party should give its political opponent another opportunity 
to demonstrate its fitness to command, the American people, 
in 1892, returned the Democratic party to power, — an act 
which, in their sober moments, they seem to have quite as sud- 
denly regretted. No sooner had the Democratic party ob- 
tained control of governmental affairs than came a change so 
sudden and so disastrous as again to produce severe industrial 
disturbance and grave financial upheavals. So steady and 
persistent grew the distrust of Democratic methods, that within 
thirteen months after his election to the Presidency in 1892, 
President Cleveland, in his annual message to Congress in De- 
cember, 1893, said: "With plenteous crops, with abundant 
promise of remunerative production and manufacture, with 
unusual invitation to safe investment, and with satisfactory 
assurance to business enterprise, suddenly financial fear and 
distrust have sprung up on every side." 

It is a far cry from Cleveland to Buchanan, and yet how 
like have been the fruits of their administrations! How dole- 
fully similar the sad strains of their official tales of woe! How 
singular, that business confidence, which walked hand in hand 
with Republican administrations, should have so suddenly 
and so completely shrunk from view upon the reapproach of a 
Democratic administration! 

There is no desire upon the part of Republicans to reflect 
upon the sincerity of Democratic leaders. Buchanan was doubt- 
less honest in his hostility to a protective tariff, and it is not 
believed that Cleveland was lacking in sincerity in his advocacy 
of a free-trade system. The failure of the Democratic revenue 



SPEECH ON NATIONAL ISSUES. 379 

policy is not chargeable to any lack of Democratic confidence 
in its results, nor to a lack of an honest effort upon the part of 
those who urged its adoption. The fault lies wholly in the 
utter inapplicability of Democratic doctrine and theories to the 
industrial development of a great country in a progressive age. 
As if to emphasize the absolute inability of the Democratic party 
to properly and successfully conduct the affairs of the nation, 
and as if to demonstrate to the world the folly of a revenue 
system that took no thought of American labor and American 
industries, the Cleveland administration, after compelling the 
enactment of the so-called Wilson Act, found the revenues of 
our country so decreased as to necessitate the issuance of bonds 
and the consequent increase of our public debt in a time of 
profound peace. In his annual message to Congress in Decem- 
ber, 1895, three years after his election, President Cleveland 
asked for further authority to issue bonds, and after reciting 
the history of bond issues already made by him, said: "The 
foregoing statement of events and conditions develops the fact 
that after increasing our interest-bearing bonded indebtedness 
more than $162,000,000, ... we are nearly where we started, 
having now in such reserve $79,333,966, as against $65,438,377 
in February, 1894, when the first bonds were issued." 

Further on in the same message, he said: "Inasmuch as the 
withdrawal of our gold has resulted largely from fright, there 
is nothing apparent that will prevent its continuance or re- 
currence, with its natural consequences, except such a change 
in our financial methods as will reassure the frightened." 

In other words, the business men of the country had lost 
confidence in the administration, and with much cause, it 
must be admitted. The Wilson Act had stifled industry, 
driven labor out of employment, and money into hiding. This 
extraordinary message concluded with the following despe- 
rate appeal: "In conclusion, I especially entreat the people's 
representatives in the Congress, who are charged with the 
responsibility of inaugurating measures for the safety and 
prosperity of our common country, to promptly and effectively 
consider the ills of our critical financial plight." 

"Critical financial plight "! Indeed, it was critical, so criti- 
cal that public disaster was narrowly averted by a further 
increase of the national debt. 



380 TIREY L. FORD. 

Of course, such a state of affairs could not long endure. In 
1896, amid appalling scenes of financial disaster, with a treas- 
ury depleted, with commercial ruin stalking through the land, 
with an army of unemployed being continually augmented in 
numbers, the American people, with a mighty voice, said, "We 
will have no more of this. Give us again the party of pro- 
gress, the party of prosperity, the party that has shown its 
fitness to direct and control the affairs of a great people." And 
so, when the ballots were counted in November, 1896, the Re- 
publican party was restored to power, and at its head stood 
that soldier-statesman whose name is now honored and revered 
throughout the world, — William McKinley. 

Again the scene suddenly changes. Despair gives way to 
hope. Financial disasters yield to business confidence. The 
industries of the country begin to take on new life. The 
laborer returns to remunerative toil. A Republican tariff law 
at once supplants the obnoxious Wilson Act, and abundant 
streams of revenue flow into the national treasury. More than 
this: when the cry of distress came floating over the waters 
from Cuba, our nation, moved to sympathy, bravely took up 
the mighty task of driving tyranny and oppression from the 
western hemisphere. Nor did it stop to speculate upon the 
consequences that might come to our favored land. The result 
you all know. A four months' war, unprecedented for its 
promptness, its skill, and its daring, involving the expenditure 
of many millions of public treasure, was successfully fought 
without disturbing in the slightest degree the business in- 
terests of our country. Never before was such an example 
given to the world. And as we look back over the tragic 
events of the past few years, we are constrained to believe that 
an all-wise Providence staj^ed the ruthless hand of war until 
our nation could have the benefit of those principles and 
policies upon which she has ever relied in her hours of need. 
We are too near the great events now passing in review before 
us to fully appreciate their stupendous significance and im- 
portance, but we are not too near to feel a sense of profound 
gratitude that the Republican party is at the helm of state 
and that William McKinley is the present occupant of the 
Presidential chair. 



SPEECH ON NATIONAL ISSUES. 381 

Now come Mr. Bryan, Mr. Croker, Mr. Tillman, Mr. Altgeld, 
and other political doctors of the revised Democratic school, 
and tell us we are again in need of a change. Change from 
what? Change to what? What is it they want to change? 

Would they change the tariff? They tried that in 1894, and 
in three years they increased our national debt two hundred 
and sixty-two million dollars, and left a deficit in the national 
treasury of over a hundred millions. Imports increased and 
exports decreased. In other words, we bought more than we 
sold, and, as a result, began to grow poorer. Industrial stag- 
nation followed throughout the land, and two millions of 
laborers were thrown out of employment. Is this the change 
which they prescribe? 

Would they change our financial system? Would they have 
us adopt the wild heresies of 1896, now apologetically hidden 
awa} T by their sponsors of four years ago? Would they have 
us abandon a policy that in three short years has increased 
our circulating medium over five hundred million dollars, — 
an increase of nearly six dollars per capita for every man, 
woman, and child in the United States? Would they change 
a system that in three years has enabled us to sell to other 
nations over a thousand millions more than we have bought 
from them, thus rapidly adding to the material wealth of our 
nation? Would they have us change a system that has re- 
stored business confidence, put two millions of laborers to 
work, and swelled the savings-bank deposits to the unprece- 
dented figure of twent} r -two hundred and thirty millions, — 
an increase of over three hundred millions since 1896, — while 
the number of depositors during the same time has reached 
the remarkable number of six millions, — an increase of over 
six hundred thousand among those who are thus laying by a 
part of their earnings? Would they change all this, and have 
us enter upon the hazardous experiment of a debased currency 
and the known evils of free trade? 

If not, then is Bryan lacking in that sincerity without which 
he has no right to ask the confidence of the American people. 
From his place in the national Congress he stood sponsor for 
the fatal Wilson Bill, and hurled rhetorical denunciation at 
the protective system, which he characterized as "false in 



382 TIEEY L. FORD. 

economy and vicious in policy." Nor was he less vehement 
in his denunciation of our present standard of money, which 
he said he would do his utmost to destroy if elected President. 
If Bryan be sincere, he is proven a false economist and an un- 
safe guide; if insincere, his place is not at the head of our 
national affairs. 

Would they change the condition of American labor? 
Never in all the years of our country's history has labor been 
so steadily employed, and at wages so remunerative, as at 
present. Wages in all branches of trade have been, and still 
are, gradually increasing, and the army of the unemployed 
has been reduced to a minimum. In San Francisco alone, 
twenty thousand more laborers are employed than in 1896, 
and in the lumber-camps of California ten thousand addi- 
tional men have found employment, while during the same 
period the savings banks of California have increased their de- 
posits by over twenty-five million dollars. It is the savings 
bank in 1900, instead of the soup-house in 1896. Would Mr. 
Bryan change this? 

Would they effect a change in our manufacturing industry? 
We are at high-water mark, and are now shipping abroad, 
every day, over a million dollars' worth of manufactured 
products. 

Would they change the condition of the farmer, who has 
found a home market, and is busy paying off his mortgage, or 
that of the orchardist and vineyardist, who are but now recov- 
ering from the disastrous consequences of the Wilson tariff 
law? 

Would they change our foreign commerce, that, under the 
present administration, has expanded to such unprecedented 
proportions, that has brought us a balance of trade in our 
favor of over five hundred millions per annum, that has 
dotted our harbors with ships from every quarter of the globe, 
and that is sending the products of our factories, our orchards, 
and our farms to the remotest corners of the earth? 

Would they change the industrial condition of our domestic 
trade? Never has it been better. Since 1896, clearing-house 
returns have nearly doubled, showing renewed activity and an 
enormous increase in our domestic trade. Under the stimu- 



SPEECH ON NATIONAL ISSUES. 383 

lus of a protective tariff and sound financial legislation, new 
industries have sprung up, confidence has come again, idle 
men have gone to work, money has come out of hiding and 
found profitable investment, mortgages have been canceled, 
our national debt, temporarily increased by the war with 
Spain, is again in process of reduction, with two-per-cent 
bonds selling at a premium. And as a final crown to this 
financial and industrial triumph, we have ceased to borrow 
money from abroad, and have become the creditor nation of 
the world. 

Would Mr. Bryan and his varied following change any of 
these? I say, they dare not. They dare not destroy a tariff 
law, however vicious it may appear to Mr. Bryan's distem- 
pered imagination, that has brought prosperity to our coun- 
try, and under which the fruit-grower, the farmer, and the 
vineyardist of California have found a welcome relief from 
the blighting and deadly influences of a tariff once noisily ad- 
vocated by the rhetorician of Nebraska. 

They dare not even hint at the financial heresy of 1896, that 
now lies in the gutter, abandoned by its former friends and 
studiously avoided by those who stand its sponsors now. 

They dare not disturb our foreign commerce or our domes- 
tic trade, nor take from labor the mighty advantages it has 
gained in three short years of Republican rule. 

Listen, if you please, to the voice of labor, speaking through 
its national leader. In his report for the year 1898, Mr. Sam- 
uel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, 
said: "The terrible period for the wage-earners of this coun- 
try, which began in 1893, and which has left behind it such a 
record of horror, hunger, and misery, practically ended with 
the dawn of the year 1897. Wages had been steadily forced 
down from 1893 till toward the end of 1895, and it was vari- 
ously estimated that between two million and two and a half 
million wage-earners were unemployed." 

On December 11, 1899, at the meeting of the Federation in 
Detroit, Mr. Gompers said: "The revival of industry which 
we have witnessed within the past year is a subject for gen- 
eral congratulation, and it should be our purpose to endeavor 
to prolong this era of more general employment and industrial 



384 TIREY L. FORD. 

activity. ... It is beyond question that the wages of the or- 
ganized workers have been increased, and in many instances 
the hours of labor either reduced or at least maintained." 

Would Mr. Bryan dare even hint at a change of the happy 
conditions so clearly set forth in the official reports of the 
president of the organized labor forces of America ? I leave 
the working-men of our country to answer that question. 

What, then, would our opponents change? The answer is 
not difficult to find. They would change the dispenser of 
Federal patronage. They would substitute another hand for 
that of McKinley in the disposition of the loaves and fishes so 
dear to the spoilsman's heart. Such, at least, is the ill-con- 
cealed purpose of the Hon. Richard Croker, of the American 
Ice Company, without whose aid the electoral vote of New 
York is confessedly lost to Bryan, and without the electoral 
vote of New York it is equally certain that Mr. Bryan cannot 
be elected President of the United States. 

But Mr. Bryan is a master of expediency. Driven from the 
tariff principles to the advocacy of which he had dedicated his 
life and for which he had given the full measure of his elo- 
quence, routed from his financial theories to which he had 
pledged anew the devotion of his facile tongue, bereft of every 
affirmative principle to which he had given rhetorical aid, he 
turns in desperation to the economic question of trusts and 
the mythical question of imperialism. 

But he shall not escape. No subterfuge can avail with the 
American people in their present mood. His record of past 
folly cannot be cured with future promises. Already have the 
people become surfeited with promises and prophecies, — prom- 
ises unredeemed, prophecies unfulfilled. Rhetorical periods 
no longer satisfy, and abuse can no longer usurp the place of 
argument. 

The trust question is a great question, a grave question, an 
industrial and economic question, but in no sense a party 
question. Industrial evolution has developed new methods of 
doing business. Steam and electricity have annihilated time 
and space. The printing-press informs us of the daily hap- 
penings throughout the world. The telegraph has made the 
antipodes our neighbors and brought the most distant por- 



SPEECH ON NATIONAL ISSUES. 385 



tions of the world to our very doors. The Philippines are 
nearer Washington now than was California at the time of her 
admission to the Union fifty years ago. The long and peril- 
ous voyage undertaken by Columbus in a spirit of adventure 
is now but a holiday excursion. Enterprises that would have 
baffled the genius of another age do not even cause surprise. 
Industrial development, impossible in the absence of steam 
and electric energy, has pervaded every avenue of business en- 
terprise and stamped its all-pervading spirit upon the closing 
years of the nineteenth century. 

Rapidity of thought, concentration of energy, combination 
of means, harmony of results, — such are the latter-day 
methods of carrying on the world's stupendous and ever- 
increasing business. In obedience to these modern laws of 
industrial enterprise, combination and organization are the 
order of the day; and so long as the bounds of legitimate en- 
terprise be not overstepped, good, rather than harm, results 
from such combination and organization. 

Among the first in America to appreciate the value of organ- 
ization and co-operation were the wage-earners. Beginning 
with the skilled workmen of the factories and mills, the spirit 
of organization spread through the ranks of labor until now the 
American Federation of Labor reaches every avenue of com- 
mercial and industrial enterprise, and compels a recognition of 
the rights of those who toil. The value of combination in the 
field of labor has been abundantly demonstrated. 

The raisin-growers of Fresno have found it to their advan- 
tage to combine for mutual profit and protection, and the 
prune-growers of the Santa Clara Valley have pursued a simi- 
lar course. 

So might instances innumerable be cited of industrial com- 
binations along legitimate lines and within legitimate bounds. 
It is the old story of the bundle of sticks. In union there is 
strength. The organized force has a distinct advantage over 
unorganized numbers. By a combination of industrial forces, 
whether of labor or of capital, or of both, the cost of production 
may be lessened and better results made possible, and so long 
as the consumer is benefited thereby and labor receives its just 
share of industrial profit, to that extent are combinations 



386 TIREY L. FORD. 

desirable and beneficial. But when a combination of capital 
enters a given field, destroys all rivalry therein, secures a mo- 
nopoly, and advances prices beyond the limit of legitimate profit, 
then does combination become an evil that must be promptly 
and effectually throttled. But how? That is the precise ques- 
tion that now confronts the American people, — a question the 
solution of which is in no degree aided by the wordy mouth- 
ings of an ambitious leader or the indiscriminate abuse of his 
heterogeneous following. It is a question that demands the 
most careful and intelligent consideration. It is a question 
for statesmen, not demagogues, for patriots, not time-servers 
who espouse or abandon a principle as it may suit their pres- 
ent needs. Upon it there is no difference of opinion along 
party lines. No right-thinking man condemns the orchardist 
or vineyardist for combining to preserve the well-earned fruits 
of honest toil; while every man who loves his country, of 
whatever political faith he may be, must utterly condemn mo- 
nopoly that would deny to labor its just reward or levy upon 
the consumer an unjust tribute. 

But while the Republican party has no desire to drag this 
question into the arena of partisan strife, it presents to the 
American people its past record thereon, and challenges a like 
showing by those whose promises have, so far, never been ac- 
companied by deeds performed. 

In 1890, just ten years ago, the only anti-trust law that was 
ever considered by Congress was introduced by a Republican 
Senator, passed by a Republican Congress, and signed by a 
Republican President. Two years thereafter, a Democratic 
administration came into power, and Mr. Richard Olney of 
Massachusetts, then Attorney- General of the United States, a 
lawyer of admitted ability, and now an ardent supporter of 
Mr. Bryan, expressed the opinion that no law of Congress 
could effectually dispel the evil sought to be reached, owing to 
the limitations of the Federal constitution. It was pointed 
out that each state was sovereign within its own geographical 
limits, and that Congress was limited to such commerce as 
might be carried on among the states. This view was con- 
firmed by the United States supreme court, and in accordance 
therewith the law has been, and is still being, enforced, so far 



SPEECH ON NATIONAL ISSUES. 387 

as the limits of the Federal constitution will permit. Under 
it the railroad combine known as the Joint Traffic Association 
was dissolved, the coal combine of San Francisco was de- 
stroyed, the pipe and steel trust was declared an unlawful 
combination by Judge Taft of Ohio, now President of the Phil- 
ippine Commission, whose action was upheld by the supreme 
court of the United States in December last. But the evil was 
only partially suppressed. Private corporations, organized 
under state laws, found abundant means of protection against 
a Federal law whose force was limited to interstate trans- 
actions. As another means of evasion, the original trust plan 
of operation was largely abandoned, and a more perfect com- 
bination effected by the absolute and total absorption of all 
the properties of the trust by a single corporation organized 
under state laws. 

It thus became perfectly apparent that without additional 
authority Congress was powerless to provide any complete or 
adequate relief from the evils of industrial monopoly. 

To the end that Congress might legislate more effectively, 
the Republicans of the last Congress proposed that an amend- 
ment to the Federal constitution should be submitted to the 
several states, giving specifically to Congress the necessary 
power to deal with trusts, monopolies, and combinations, 
whether in the form of corporations, or otherwise. The pro- 
posed amendment is brief, and I will read it. 

"Article XVI. 

"Section 1. All powers conferred by this article shall 
extend to the several states, the territories, the District of 
Columbia, and all territory under the sovereignty and subject 
to the jurisdiction of the United States. 

"Section 2. Congress shall have power to define, regulate, 
prohibit, or dissolve trusts, monopolies, or combinations, 
whether existing in the form of a corporation, or otherwise. 
The several states may continue to exercise such power in any 
manner not in conflict with the laws of the United States. 

"Section 3. Congress shall have power to enforce the pro- 
visions of this article by appropriate legislation." 



388 TIREY L. FORD. 

The amendment thus proposed was plain, simple, and to the 
point. Under it no subterfuge would be possible. No trust 
or combination could thereafter hide behind a corporate char- 
ter under a state law. This placed the power where alone it 
could be effectively exercised, and where the remedy could be 
uniformly administered throughout the entire country. When 
the vote came to be taken, however, the Republicans found 
themselves standing alone in favor of the amendment, the 
Democrats and Populists voting almost solidly against it, and 
depriving it of the necessary two-thirds vote to enable it to be 
submitted to the several states. 

Such is the record of the Republican party, and, coupled 
with it, we have a right to know what Democracy has done to 
abate the trust evil. For four years subsequent to the passage 
of the anti-trust law by a Republican Congress, — that is, from 
1893 to 1897, — Democracy was enthroned at Washington, and 
during two years of that time controlled both the legislative 
and executive branches of our national government. Was any 
effort made to amend or modify the anti-trust law of 1890? 
No. Was any effort made to clothe Congress with the addi- 
tional power pointed out by Attorney-General Olney as essen- 
tial to effective Congressional action? No. Then, what has 
Democracy done to abate the trust evil? I answer, Nothing, 
— absolutely nothing, — except to bring into action the mighty 
jaw of Bryan; and while this character of weapon is said to 
have done some marvelous execution on one historic occasion, 
it is not recorded that any trusts have retreated before its 
present menacing advance. 

But whatever may have been the delinquencies of Mr. Bryan 
and his friends, let them not be made the excuse for dragging 
this great industrial and economic question into the mire of 
partisan debate. It is not a party question. In the great 
state of New York, a Republican administration, with Gov- 
ernor Roosevelt at its head, is giving battle to Mr. Croker's 
ice trust, while a Democratic administration in Texas is trying 
to destroy the cotton-bale trust, of which Chairman Jones of 
the Democratic National Committee is a conspicuous member. 
We know, however, that the several states, acting indepen- 
dently of one another, and with some of the states, notably 



SPEECH ON NATIONAL ISSUES. 389 

New Jersey, declining to act at all, no general or lasting re- 
sults can be obtained. The duty of the American people is 
therefore clear and manifest. Let them lay aside all partisan 
feeling, and looking this question squarely in the face, calmly 
determine the remedy to be applied, and then unflinchingly 
apply it. What the final solution of the question will be I 
cannot say, but that it will be wisely and satisfactorily solved, 
I have not the slightest doubt. 

The trust question, however, as I have already stated, is not 
a party question, and no one knows this better than Mr. Bryan. 
Furthermore, Mr. Bryan keenly realizes that with Mr. Croker 
managing his campaign in New York, and a member of the 
cotton-bale trust at the head of his national committee, it will 
not be safe for him to rely upon an anti-trust crusade so mani- 
festly lacking in the essential element of sincerity; and so, in 
final desperation, he cries out, "Imperialism," and seeks with 
much clamor and noise to attract public attention to this new- 
born child of the wizard's brain. But this, too, must fail. 
No statement, however boldly asserted, no doctrine, however 
noisily proclaimed, can long endure without the simple yet 
godlike quality of truth. Imperialism, as sought to be charged 
upon this land of the free, is a pure and fleeting myth; the 
wild vaporings of a heated imagination; the final and despe- 
rate cry of impending defeat. 'It would even be ridiculous, did 
it not smack of treason and lend material aid and comfort to 
those arrayed in arms against our country's flag. Upon it the 
insurgents of Luzon base their only hope of successful resist- 
ance to American authority. Its tireless iteration in America 
is echoed by insurgent guns upon the firing-line eight thou- 
sand miles away. The brave Lawton, facing danger at the 
front, saw the fearful results being wrought by his misguided 
countrymen in the rear. " If I am shot by a Filipino bullet," 
said he, a few days before his death, " it might as well come 
from one of my own men, because I know from captured 
prisoners that continuance of righting here is chiefly due to 
reports that are sent out from America." This testimony of 
Lawton is confirmed by a report of the present Philippine 
Commission, composed of both Democrats and Republicans, 
and headed by Judge Taft of Cincinnati, a pronounced anti- 



390 TIREY L. FORD. 

expansionist, but yet a lover of his country's flag. This Com- 
mission, in a cabled report, a few weeks ago, used this language: 
"The policy of leniency, culminating in amnesty, had marked 
effect to induce surrenders until defining of political issues in 
the United States, reported here in full, gave hope to the in- 
surgent officers in arms, and stayed surrenders to await result 
of election." 

The humane policy of McKinley was having marked effect, 
say the Commission, and insurgent officers were surrendering 
to American authority, until the message from Bryan was 
flashed across the sea, admonishing the insurgents that their 
cause against America was just, and that, if elected President 
of the United States, he would recognize the government of 
Aguinaldo. This, say the Commission, gave hope to the in- 
surgent officers in arms, and stayed surrender to await result 
of election. 

If further confirmation were needed of the comfort which our 
enemies derive from the pernicious doctrines of the Bryan 
school of Democracy, it may be found in the secret corre- 
spondence of the Filipino leaders, recently captured by the 
forces under General MacArthur. In one of the letters thus 
captured, Theodore Sandico, one of Aguinaldo's trusted lieu- 
tenants, writing from Hongkong, says: " The present campaign, 
and some other circumstances, have created in America a po- 
litical situation that may perhaps produce the downfall of 
McKinley, which will signify the triumph of our ideals." 

Is Mr. Bryan giving any aid and comfort to the enemy? 
The testimony is all one way. Indeed, Mr. Bryan stands a 
self-confessed supporter of Aguinaldo's insurrection against 
American authority. In his speech at Indianapolis, before 
the convention of Democratic clubs, on the 4th of the present 
month, he said the American colonists fought the same bat- 
tle that the Filipinos are fighting now. I will read his exact 
language, as reported in the San Francisco Examiner, whose 
proprietor is at the head of the National League of Democratic 
Clubs, represented by the convention addressed by Mr. Bryan. 
He said: "Now they say that the war would stop if it were 
not for the Democratic party. They say that the Filipinos 
would lay down their arms but for the hope they have that I 



SPEECH ON NATIONAL ISSUES. 391 

may be elected. My friends, whenever a Republican tells you 
that, you tell him that the colonists fought the same battle 
that the Filipinos are fighting, and they did it nearly a hun- 
dred years before I was born." 

Shades of the Revolution, to what straits has this our boy 
orator been driven ! The bloodthirsty Tagals compared with 
the American colonists; the treacherous Aguinaldo placed be- 
side the "Father of his Country"; King George the prototype 
of President McKinley. Picture Washington, the proud and 
stately Virginian, ever jealous of his honor, selling his country 
for gold, and returning, under the protection of an alien hand, 
to violate his unholy compact and set up a government of his 
own creation. In the War of the Revolution the American colo- 
nists fired upon the English flag and shot down English sol- 
diers. According to Mr. Bryan, the followers of Aguinaldo 
may rightfully fire upon the American flag and shoot down 
American soldiers. Nay, more: it is their patriotic duty so to 
do. The Filipino bullet that sent Lawton to his final rest 
was fired in a holy cause. When brave young Logan fell, he 
was executing the orders of a tyrant. But enough of such 
sacrilege! I will leave the followers of Mr. Bryan to further 
run out the odious comparisons instituted by himself. 

But what is all this hue and cry about? What is the basis 
of all this treasonable talk? What is our government doing 
that it has not always done? In what respect does our treat- 
ment of the Philippines differ from that accorded any newly 
acquired territory? I answer, None, absolutely none; and I 
defy the most ardent supporter of Aguinaldo to point to 
one single act of this government in the Philippine Islands 
that has not an honorable precedent in American history. 
Even Mr. Bryan will not question our title to the Philippines, 
for he himself assisted in the procurement of that title from 
Spain in precisely the same manner in which we acquired title 
to the soil of California from Mexico. The Philippine Com- 
mission appointed by President McKinley to draft a plan of 
government have taken for their guide the government pro- 
vided by Jefferson for the Louisiana Purchase, save that an 
enlarged share of government is to be extended to the Fili- 
pinos, and self-government granted as rapidly as they can be 



392 TIREY L. FORD. 

taught to properly appreciate and apply its principles. The 
insurrection begun by Aguinaldo has been suppressed in a 
manner no different from that employed by Jackson in the 
Floridas, and later by our government in New Mexico and 
Arizona. In short, as Jefferson did in Louisiana, even against 
the protest of the people living there, as Jackson did in the 
Floridas, and as our government has done in every newly ac- 
quired possession, so are we doing in the Philippine Islands; 
and as in every instance liberty and law and order and the 
American schoolhouse have followed the flag, so in those 
islands across the sea the Stars and Stripes will continue to 
wave above the soil in which our heroes sleep until the mad 
cry of imperialism shall be swallowed up in the glad songs of 
freedom from the lips of those who have tasted the blessings 
brought to them with our country's flag. 

But the cry of imperialism is not new. It comes clad in 
the cast-off garments of other days. It smells of the sewer, 
and is damp with the mildew of the passing years. It is the 
same desperate and shameless cry that arose against the 
" Father of his Country " at the close of the Revolution, that 
hounded Jefferson through his second term, that sought to 
break the popularity of Jackson, and that struck down the 
martyred Lincoln. 

Nor has the character of its sponsors changed. Those who 
cried out against the military power of Washington would, if 
living now, be shouting for Bryan; those who denounced Jef- 
ferson for the Louisiana Purchase, and declaimed against a 
temporarily appointed government of the newly acquired terri- 
tory against the protest and without the consent of the gov- 
erned, would find themselves entirely at home with the 
Bryan shouters of to-day; those who cried "despot" at the 
heels of Jackson when he put down the insurrection in Flor- 
ida, — then newly acquired, and bearing the precise relation 
to the United States that the Philippines do now, — and who 
predicted the fall of the republic upon his accession to the 
Presidency, — would need no further recommendation to gain 
admission to the sacred circle of the calamity-howlers of 1900. 

But above all would the disciples of discontent welcome 
with outstretched arms that mad and furious crowd that 



SPEECH ON NATIONAL ISSUES. 393 

charged upon the lowly Lincoln the attribute of empire, and 
with tireless and ceaseless iteration foretold not only the fall 
of the republic, but the end of human liberty, as the price of 
Lincoln's re-election in 1864. It is perfectly safe to assume 
that every man who shouted "tyrant" at Lincoln in 1864 is, if 
living, marching to-day under the banner of Bryan. 

Imperialism, indeed! McKinley an emperor! McKinley a 
tyrant! McKinley an enemy of human liberty! McKinley a 
cold and heartless monarch, ready and anxious to crush the 
American people beneath the merciless heel of a cruel despot- 
ism! Such terms as these are better fitted for another age and 
another land. Weak indeed must be the cause that demands 
at the hands of its advocates such slanderous abuse. 

But William McKinley needs no defense. His answer is 
the story of his life, — a story that may be read with profit 
by every American citizen; a life that is an inspiration to 
every American youth. It is the story of a man developed 
and disciplined in that severest of all schools, — adversity, — 
and who represents in its true sense the highest and best type 
of American manhood; a man whose genius poverty could not 
conceal, and whose dauntless spirit was undismayed by the 
hardships of his earlier years; a man upon whom the fierce 
light of public criticism has been turned with all the intensity 
and power of a determined opposition, revealing a personal 
character clean and pure, and a heart in which are embalmed 
the hallowed memories of a humble home and the sacred influ- 
ence of a Christian mother. 

Is that the stuff of which tyrants are made? For shame, 
Bryan, for shame! You, of all others, in times like these, 
should command your tongue to silence; you, whose hands 
have never known an hour of toil; you, into whose life no 
hardship ever came, and to whom the practical affairs of life 
are a sealed book; you, who stepped from your college desk to 
the editorial chair, and mounted thence the political rostrum, 
armed with political theories which, one by one, have been 
abandoned for some new and untried doctrine, through which 
you hoped to gratify a personal and selfish ambition; you, 
whose imperial will so recently overrode the sober judgment 
of your party's representatives, and compelled the reindorse- 



394 TIKEY L. FORD. 

merit of an exploded financial heresy; you, whose tender soli- 
citude for those in arms against our country's flag across the 
sea is withheld from the peaceful citizen at home, who is 
denied that sacred right of suffrage guaranteed by the Federal 
constitution. 

No, Mr. Bryan; your campaign of abuse must fail as such 
campaigns have ever failed. 

Washington heeded not the defamers of his great name, and 
his memory is enshrined in a nation's love. Jefferson saw 
with clearer vision than his detractors, and lived to see them 
all confused with their false predictions. Jackson never wa- 
vered in his firm and patriotic course, and left a name 
synonymous with courage and patriotic devotion. Lincoln, 
whose very name awakens a spirit of reverence, saw the Union 
finally saved and liberty carried to the uttermost limits of our 
fair land. 

So with McKinley, the shafts of the enemy will fall short of 
their intended victim, and, long after his traducers shall have 
been forgotten, his name will be enrolled among the uncrowned 
heroes of the world. 



_J 



HARRIS WEINSTOCK. 

It is seldom that a successful merchant is a successful orator, but 
Mr. Weinstock has accomplished much good by his intelligent presen- 
tation of various subjects. The following extracts are taken from 
Jesus the Jew, and Other Addresses, published by Funk and Wagnalls 
Company, New York. 

JESUS THE JEW. 

As I look back into my early boyhood days, the picture is 
vividly brought to my mind of the old rabbi under whose in- 
structions I received my religious training. 

Though thirty-odd years have since passed, I distinctly re- 
call him as he sat at the head of the table, surrounded by 
Jewish lads between the ages of seven and thirteen, his long 
flowing locks and white beard giving him the air of one of the 
Biblical patriarchs. 

I recall how innocent he was of all worldly knowledge, with 
what contempt he looked upon secular instruction, and how to 
him the sum of all human wisdom was confined to the Torah 
and the Talmud. The greatest savant or philosopher, if un- 
able to read Hebrew, was to him an ignoramus. All truths, 
all knowledge worth having, had, in his opinion, been uttered 
by the Hebrew prophets and the great Jewish Talmudists and 
commentators. To look elsewhere for wisdom or knowledge 
seemed, to him, a waste of time and energy, and showed a lack 
of appreciation of Jewish thought and Jewish literature. 

Joshua commands that "the words of this Torah shall not 
cease from thy mouth, and thou shalt meditate thereon day 
and night." To my old and pious religious teacher this in- 
junction left no room for the study of anything but Jewish 
lore. 

I recall that, upon one occasion, one of the pupils by some 
chance brought into the religious school a book containing the 
name of Jesus. I remember how wrought up and excited the 

395 



396 HARRIS WEINSTOCK. 

rabbi became when he was made aware of its presence in 
the schoolroom. "Sacrilege! sacrilege!" he indignantly cried, 
and seemed to be afraid to touch it. I remember how he de- 
livered an impassioned discourse to his pupils upon the ter- 
rible sufferings to which the Jews had been subjected because 
of Jesus: he told them how the Jews had been made outcasts 
and wanderers over the face of the earth; how, for hundreds 
of years, they had been robbed and pillaged, tortured and 
plundered; how their beards had been torn from their roots, 
their teeth drawn from their jaws, their bodies cast into foul 
dungeons; how, time and again, they had been put on the 
rack, subjected to the thumb-screw and burned at the stake, 
all, all, on account of Jesus. 

I remember how aroused and impassioned he became while 
recounting the frightful sufferings and calamities which had 
been inflicted upon the Jews, for all of which, in his opinion, 
Jesus was primarily responsible. " How, then," he concluded, 
"can any self-respecting, loyal Jew take into his hand a book 
containing the name of Jesus? How can the name of Jesus 
be thought of without connecting it in the mind of the Jew 
with the centuries of inhuman outrage and persecution heaped 
upon him by the followers of Jesus?" 

For many years these utterances and teachings clung to my 
mind, and, doubtless, had their influence in warping my 
thoughts and in coloring my ideas. I could not but sympa- 
thize with the feelings and sentiments of my people, and, in 
common with my orthodox teacher, feel within my heart that 
the badge of suffering had been placed upon the Jew by the 
words and acts of Jesus. All this I felt before I had an oppor- 
tunity to read and to think for myself, before the words, the 
deeds, and the sentiments of the Nazarene were known to me. 
In time, the life of the man from Galilee became to me a study 
of profound interest. I read the story of his life as told in the 
New Testament; I read the conception of Jesus as portrayed 
by some of the ablest modern Jewish and Christian scholars; 
I carefully studied his utterances as presented in the gospels; 
and the picture of this great and wonderful character grew to 
me to be a very different one from that painted by my vene- 
rable and pious, but uninformed, Hebrew teacher. I found 



JESUS THE JEW. 397 

that, according to New Testament traditions, Jesus was born a 
Jew, lived a Jew, died a Jew. I found that he had preached 
nothing but Judaism in its purest and simplest form. I found 
that the thought of establishing a new belief, or even a new 
sect, was farthest from his mind; that his aim was, not to fol- 
low after the heathen, but to seek out "the lost sheep of the 
house of Israel." 

I found that Jesus taught nothing and knew nothing about 
the Trinity, Vicarious Atonement, Election, Predestination, 
and many other Christian dogmas. He simply knew Judaism, 
the religion of his birth, which he practiced and preached, and 
which he tried to keep pure and undefiled. 

I found that his mission seemed to be to uplift the lowly and 
to expose wickedness in high places. 

I found that he gave his heart, his soul, and his very being 
to the poor, to the sick, and to the needy. He said, " I am 
not come to heal the sound; I have been sent unto the sick." 

I found that he was a man of unbounded sympathies and 
of great moral courage; that he was simply striving to practice 
and to preach the great moral code established by Moses and 
the prophets, and to put into practice, literally, in his daily 
life, the great lawgiver's precept of " love thy neighbor as thy- 
self." 

I found his teachings to consist chiefly in the following: — 

"Blessed are the poor in spirit." 

"Blessed are they that mourn." 

" Blessed are the meek." 

" Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness." 

" Blessed are the merciful." 

" Blessed are the pure in heart." 

" Blessed are the peacemakers." 

"Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' 
sake." 

I found that these are all Jewish teachings reduced to a 
clear and simple form, which the most orthodox and most 
pious Jew must accept as a part of his own faith. 

Why, then, was it, that, in view of such ethical Jewish utter- 
ances, the Jews should have been so mistreated by the follow- 
ers of Jesus, and Jesus so much contemned by the Jews? 



398 HARRIS WEINSTOCK. 

Then followed, on my part, a study of Christianity, and the 
causes which led to Jewish persecution. It took but little 
reading to learn that Paul, the Grecian Jew, and not Jesus, 
was the real founder of Christianity; that Paul was the man 
who conceived the idea of spreading Judaism among the Gen- 
tiles, by preaching the God of Israel and the man Jesus, the 
son of God. I found it was Paul's heroic qualities which en- 
abled him, despite the severest persecution by Jew and Gen- 
tile, to surround himself with a large following, not of Jews 
alone, but of heathen as well, who ' became believers in the 
Jewish God, and worshipers of the Jewish carpenter, Jesus, 
whom they accepted as the son of God, sent upon earth to 
save the human family, "hence begetting the new theology, 
irreconcilable with the doctrines and the discipline of the 
rabbis." . . . 

Had there been no Abraham, there would have been no Moses. 
Had there been no Moses, there would have been no Jesus. Had 
there been no Jesus, there would have been no Paul. Had there 
been no Paul, there would have been no Christianity. Had 
there been no Christianity, there would have been no Jputher. 
Had there been no Luther, there would have been no Pil- 
grim Fathers to land on these shores with the Jewish Bible 
under their arms. Had there been no Pilgrim Fathers, there 
would have been no civil or religious liberty. Had there been 
no civil or religious liberty, tyranny and despotism would still 
rule the earth, and the human family would still live in men- 
tal, moral, and physical bondage. 

Without Jesus and without Paul, the God of Israel would 
still have been the God of a handful, the God of a petty, ob- 
scure, and insignificant tribe; the magnificent moral teachings 
of Moses would still have been confined to the thinly scattered 
believers in Judaism, and the great world of men and women 
would have been left so much the poorer because of their 
ignorance of these benign teachings. 

Let the Jew, despite the centuries of persecution and suffering, 
be thankful that there was a Jesus and a Paul. Let him more 
fully appreciate that, through the wonderful influence of these 
heroic characters, the mission of the Jew is being better ful- 
filled, and his teachings are being spread to the remotest nooks 



JESUS THE JEW. 399 

and corners of the world by Christianity, " a religion by which 
millions have been, and still are, quickened and inspired." 
Let the Jew not forget that, through the influence of Jesus and 
Paul, the Ten Commandments of Moses, the sublime utter- 
ances of Isaiah, of Micah, of Jeremiah, the proverbs of Solo- 
mon, and the psalms of David have brought, and are bringing, 
and will continue to bring, balm and comfort, joy and happi- 
ness, spiritual bliss and moral sunshine, into untold millions 
of homes. 

Thus is the Christian, through Jesus and Paul, deeply in- 
debted to the Jew; and thus is the Jew also, through Jesus 
and Paul, deeply indebted to the Christian. The Christian 
and Jew of to-day, each in his own way, is manfully striving 
to perform his part in preaching the belief in the same God, 
who is all-just, all-wise, and all-knowing; each is trying to do 
his share by spreading among his fellow-men a love for moral- 
ity and righteousness. 

Christianity and Judaism are supplementary to each other. 
Had there been no Judaism, there could have been no Chris- 
tianity. Had there been no Christianity, the message of 
Judaism could not have become so speedily universalized. 
There is ample room in this broad world for the followers of 
both beliefs to accomplish, side by side, a most heroic religious 
and moral work. A difference in matters of theology need in 
no way interfere with Jew and Christian preaching and teach- 
ing the fatherhood of God, and living in the spirit of the 
brotherhood of man. So to teach and so to live, whether born 
under the influence of church or synagogue, whether looking 
upon the Nazarene as man or God, is to win moral happiness 
in this world and in the world hereafter. . . . 

Jew and Christian should continue to seek out the many 
beliefs they have in common, and to join hands in working 
together for humanity. 

The object-lesson should become multiplied a thousand-fold 
the world over, which for years existed in my own city, where 
our worthy rabbi worked in most perfect harmony with a 
Protestant ex-clergyman and a devout Catholic in their efforts 
to save the youth in our midst from vice and degradation. 
What a glory and a joy it would be to the Nazarene, were he 



400 HARRIS WEINSTOCK. 

now to return to life and find so many of his beloved Jewish 
brethren and his earnest Christian followers living side by side 
in peace and in harmony, and working together for a common 
good! 

The Jew should continue to cultivate a broad and liberal 
spirit. He should avoid the narrowness, the religious exclu- 
siveness, of the Pharisee, and the social exclusiveness of the 
Sadducee. His sympathies should continue to widen, his 
religious horizon to broaden, and his spirit of tolerance should 
become his crowning glory. 

Let the Christian continue to preach and to practice the 
ethics of Judaism as set forth in the Old as well as the New 
Testament. Let him strive to eliminate from Christianity the 
elements of paganism grafted upon it during its earlier history, 
so that his teachings may become more purified and brought 
back to the simple belief taught by the humble carpenter from 
Galilee. Jew and Christian shall thus be brought into still 
closer touch and into still greater harmony and fellowship. 
Each, in his own way, may go on striving to fulfill the noble 
teachings of his belief and aiming to live in accordance with 
the many lofty and beautiful truths imbibed at the breast of 
Judaism by the Nazarene and by Paul, which they gave back 
to the world clothed in a newer and brighter form. 

Let the Christian, in accordance with the dictates of his 
conscience, continue to preach Jesus as " the Divine man who 
lived humanly," and let the Jew learn to look upon him as 
"the human Man who lived divinely." 

Jesus, instead of being the dividing-line between Jew and 
Christian, shall thus become the connecting link between the 
divine mother-religion, Judaism, and her noble daughter, 
Christianity. 

May Jews and Christians learn to love their neighbors as 
themselves, and by example, as well as by precept, become 
nations of priests and a blessing to humanity. 

In this spirit alone can the Christian follow in the footsteps 
of his Master, Jesus. In this spirit alone can the Jew follow 
the teachings of his gentle and kindly religion. In this spirit 
alone can Jew and Christian hope to be of service to each other 
and to the human family. 



FRANKLIN K. LANE. 

Mr. Lane has had a remarkable career for a young man. He was 
educated in the schools of Oakland and in the University of California, 
and as editor, lawyer, and public official has succeeded. His speeches 
are free from meaningless metaphors, florid imagery, and demagogism. 
His style is characterized by strenuous common sense. In his remark- 
able campaign for governor in 1902, there were no tricks of oratory, no 
appeal to the passions of the people, no posing. His style belongs to 
the new generation. 

CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 

There may be men who do not like that kind of noise, but 
I am not one of them. I have seen men, candidates, political 
speakers, raise their hand in deprecation at such manifesta- 
tions of appreciation, as if desirous to hush the audience to 
silence, but when they have failed, I always have noticed that 
they wore a smile of satisfaction on their faces. [Laughter.] 

The man in public life is not so stuffed and crammed with 
evidences of public appreciation that he has a surfeit and that 
he cries, " Hold, enough! " I have been looking over this audi- 
ence to-night as I sat in one corner, looking down into your 
faces, and I know that when the applause went up for me, it 
was from your hearts. That is what moves me; that is why I 
appreciate it; and I will tell you that appreciation manifested 
in that way stands off and compensates for many a hard word 
and many a bad time in a political campaign. As I looked 
over this audience, I saw the men who had put me into this 
fight. They do not sit here on the platform. They are sitting 
out there, and out there, and up here. 

I am in the fight for governor to-day because when I went, 
after the last campaign, as has been my custom for three times, 
to the gas-works, to the sugar-refineries, to the iron-works, 
down on the wharves, up along North Beach, into the fac- 
tories, and through the cooperages, and said to these men who 
had stood so loyally by me then and in two preceding cam- 

401 



402 FRANKLIN K. LANE. 

paigns, "My friends, I thank you; I thank you for your sup- 
port," they said to me, " We don't want to vote for you for 
city attorney again; why not give us a chance to vote for you 
for governor next time?" That is the reason why I am here 
to-night. [Applause.] You put me into this fight. I am 
making your fight. I have won the battle so far, and if you 
will stay with me, I will take the next hurdle and make it 
altogether. 

In this desire to bring about a fair division of the profits of 
industry and the benefits of prosperity, we cannot overlook the 
plain fact that the chief agent in achieving that desire has been 
organized labor. The men who have built up the labor unions, 
and who have sustained them through good repute and through 
ill repute, have done more to equalize American industrial 
conditions than all the rest of us put together, and it is but 
just that Democracy, whose political principles can be sustained 
only by men who are resolute to maintain their rights, should 
at this juncture join with organized labor in its struggle to ob- 
tain an equal share in the common prosperity. Should plu- 
tocracy triumph in the industrial world, there could be no 
longer a Democracy in the world of politics. Other parties 
may or may not promise much to labor; other parties may or 
may not do much for labor; but Democracy is bound both to 
promise and to do all in its power to advance the just claims 
of the working-man, for Democracy and labor are bound 
together by bands irrefragable and not to be broken. Bands 
forged in the furnaces of nature herself bound them together 
in the beginning, and will hold them together till the end of 
time. United they stand, but divided they fall; and it is not 
one of them only that falls — they fall together. 

The third class of resolutions in the platform — those which 
deal with the material interests of California — are those which 
more directly concern me as candidate for the office of gov- 
ernor. The occupant of that office is but indirectly concerned 
with national politics and with legislation. His duty is to 
promote by faithful administration the welfare of the state, 
and to enforce with impartial justice the laws enacted by the 
representatives of the people. The strictly Californian planks 
in the platform are therefore those to which I must chiefly ad- 



CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 403 

dress myself in asking your suffrages. I am not at all regret- 
ful that this is so. I know that national politics offers a larger 
and fuller theme for a speaker, and that in dealing with its 
issues there is a greater opportunity for eloquence. 

But I am a Calif ornian; I love the state; I delight in medi- 
tating upon its golden possibilities; I have no higher ambition 
than to be instrumental in helping to bring those possibilities 
to a glorious realization; and I therefore turn to this theme 
with a feeling of gratification in the very fact that I stand 
before you as Democracy's candidate for governor of California. 
[Applause.] 

Our platform pledges us to promote our mining industries 
of every kind; to conserve our waters and forests; to further 
the practice of irrigation; to improve the public highways; to 
advance the cause of education in every department, from the 
primary school to the university; to further all agricultural 
interests; to liberally support the county and state fairs; to 
establish state, county, and municipal administration upon 
the basis of merit; and to provide for the just assessment and 
taxation of the property of corporations. 

This programme, briefly and hurriedly stated, is the most 
comprehensive that has ever been undertaken in Californian 
politics. Any single feature of it constitutes a vast work. 
Great as it is, however, it is not too great for California nor for 
her opportunities; neither is it too great for me to pledge my- 
self to, if I can be assured of the support of my fellow-citizens. 

In advancing the interests of our miners we have a right to 
ask the assistance of the national government. It is a singular 
fact that while America is the greatest mining country in the 
world, ours is the only first-class nation that makes no ade- 
quate provision for governmental supervision of mining. At 
the present time the direction of mines and mining in this 
country, so far as the government directs them at all, is scat- 
tered through half a dozen bureaus, divided among several 
distinct departments of state. The mining men have repeat- 
edly asked for the creation of a department of mines and 
miners, and California, as the chief mining state in the Union, 
may rightly take the lead in asking that justice. We have 
also a right to ask the full co-operation of the national gov- 



404 FRANKLIN K. LANE. 

ernment in providing for the construction of barriers that will 
prevent the debris of the mines from injuring the streams and 
the lands of the valleys. The wealth of gold which California 
has poured into the national treasury justifies us in asking the 
national appropriations for that work; and in asking them we 
can give the assurance that if the redemption of our rivers be 
guaranteed along with free and untrammeled mining, the 
wealth which we shall hereafter add to the golden store of the 
Union will be even vaster than that already bestowed. 

It is on the preservation of our forests and the wise conserva- 
tion of our waters that the future prosperity of the state mainly 
depends. The Democratic party is in a special sense charged 
with the work of irrigation, for it was the Democratic party, 
under the lead of Democratic statesmen, that added the whole 
of this great West, including our own Golden State, under the 
starry flag; Democracy furnished the pioneers that built it up, 
and Democracy owes it to the present and to coming genera- 
tions to provide for the irrigation necessary to enable Califor- 
nia and the West to become what they are destined to be, — 
the granary and the orchard of the peoples, the garden of the 
world. [Applause.] 




, 



JULIUS KAHN. 

Mr. Kahn is a native of Baden, and was born on the 28th of Feb- 
ruary, 1861. He was educated in the public schools of San Francisco. 
For the first ten years of his public life he was an actor, and played 
with Booth, Jefferson, Salvini, Florence, and Clara Morris. In 1890 he 
began the study of law, and in 1894 was admitted to the bar. Mr. Kahn 
has served two terms in Congress. His genial personality, his great 
energy, and excellent powers of oratory rendered his Congressional 
career conspicuous and useful, not only to his district, but also to the 
nation. The following speech is a good example of his work. 

CIVIL GOVERNMENT FOR THE PHILIPPINE 
ISLANDS. 

[Speech in the House of Representatives, Friday, June 20, 1902, the 
House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and 
having under consideration the bill temporarily to provide for the ad- 
ministration of the affairs of civil government in the Philippine Islands, 
and for other purposes.] 

I thank the Almighty Father, the Giver of all that is good 
and beautiful on this mundane sphere, that he has endowed 
me with an optimistic disposition. I thank him day by day 
that he has not afflicted me with a soul that goes everlastingly 
and eternally snooping around to discover that which is bad 
and vile, dishonest and dishonorable, debased and vicious, in 
mankind generally, and in my friends, neighbors, and country- 
men in particular. [Laughter and applause on the Republican 
side.] I confess frankly that I am an optimist. I love to look 
upon the bright side of life. I love to believe that my fellow- 
men are sincere and honest; that women are pure and vir- 
tuous; that this old world of ours is one of sunshine, and 
laughter, and joy, and happiness. I would "rather be in trust 
o'erconfident a thousand times deceived than wrongly once 
wound with ungenerous doubt the breast of Truth." But, 
above all else, I have an abiding faith in the ability, the hon- 
esty, the integrity, the loyalty, and the patriotism of my fel- 

405 



406 JULIUS KAHN. 

low-citizens. [Applause.] I firmly believe that no condition 
will ever arise in our country's history that will baffle the skill 
and the ability of American statesmanship. 

Great and grave problems have heretofore frequently pre- 
sented themselves during the one hundred and twenty-six 
years of our national life, and simultaneously with the prob- 
lems have arisen the men to solve them. Our annals are so 
replete with the names of our country's illustrious sons, who, 
when the emergency arose, grappled with the conditions that 
have presented themselves, boldly, honestly, fearlessly, faith- 
fully, aye, and successfully, that it would be invidious for me 
to particularize. We have a right to be proud of our past, 
and, judging by that past, we are justified in having un- 
bounded faith in the future of the republic and in the honor 
of her citizens. 

But there has never been a crisis in the affairs of this nation 
that did not bring with it an army of objectors and malcon- 
tents, whose croakings and dire forebodings of coming evil 
and national disruption, up to the present time at least, have 
happily never been realized, and my optimistic and prophetic 
soul tells me that such vaporings never will be realized, but 
that our country shall endure among the nations of the earth 
and shall continue the beacon light of liberty, even to the last 
syllable of recorded time. 

Why, sir, there are some men so peculiarly constituted that 
they are ready to predict failure for any progressive movement, 
be it in science, art, literature, or government. The word 
"success" has no place in their vocabulary. It is such men 
as these who, when Fulton announced to an interested world 
that he had perfected a steamship, and would give an ex- 
hibition on the Hudson River to demonstrate the success of 
his invention, shook their heads doubtfully, and solemnly said 
that it was all simply a waste of time; that the machine 
would not work. But we all know that it did work, and 
to-day the steamship is rapidly driving the sailing-vessel off 
the seas; it has revolutionized the ocean-carrying trade; it has 
facilitated the expansion of our foreign commerce; it has 
brought the uttermost nations of the earth into a closer re- 
lationship, and it has enabled civilization to spread its lumi- 
nous rays even to the darkest quarters of the universe. 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT FOR PHILIPPINES. 407 

Again, when Samuel F. B. Morse came to Congress and 
asked for a small appropriation for the construction of a tele- 
graph line between the cities of Washington and Baltimore, in 
order that he might prove the great worth of his marvelous 
invention, there were, in those days, learned members — aye, 
honest and most worthy members, if you please — who bitterly 
opposed the measure, because they believed it to be a waste of 
public money, and that the machine would not work. But it 
did work, and to-day, with submarine cables and a network of 
wires, overhead and underground, extending north, east, south, 
and west, the electric spark literally puts "a girdle around the 
earth in thirty minutes." The electric telegraph is, in our age 
and time, as necessary to our daily existence as is the very air 
we breathe or the water we drink. 

And, sir, I verily believe that if some of these pessimists had 
been present in the Garden of Eden when the Almighty took a 
rib out of Adam and created Eve, they would have shaken 
their heads dolefully, and would have sorrowfully exclaimed, 
"It's no use; she won't work." [Great laughter and ap- 
plause.] 

And so, Mr. Chairman, with hundreds of historic instances 
before me to convince me of the existence of that characteristic 
which Edgar Allan Poe has so graphically described as "the 
Imp of the Perverse," I feel satisfied that no matter how hu- 
mane, no matter how patriotic, no matter how honorable a 
measure to promote the welfare of the people of the Philip- 
pines might be, it was reasonable to expect that it would be 
characterized by some of our political opponents as "vicious 
in principle," "bad in its details," "unjust," "inexpedient," 
"indefensible." But, sir, the minority membership of the 
Committee on Insular Affairs has at least had the courage to 
admit "that three centuries of Spanish dominion have de- 
stroyed all self-government in the Philippine Islands, and that 
its people at this time are unprepared for its exercise"; and I 
for one desire to congratulate and felicitate them in having 
thus boldly, honestly, and frankly stated the conditions that 
every fair-minded man must admit actually exist in that dis- 
tant archipelago. 

It was my pleasure to visit the Philippine Islands last 



408 JULIUS KAHN. 

summer. I spent five weeks there. I met and conversed 
with hundreds of natives of those islands, including Agui- 
naldo, Paterno, Arellano, Torres, Mapa, Tavera, Yanko, Dr. 
Albert, Cailles, Calderon, Buencamino, Herrera, Fabie, Ro- 
salio, and men of like standing and character, as well as many 
of the common people, and I can honestly say that never once 
during my entire sojourn among them did a single Filipino 
tell me that he or his people asked for or even wanted inde- 
pendence. 

On the contrary, most of their leaders repeatedly admitted 
to me that they were incapable of self-government, and that 
they were more than content to be under the American flag. 
Indeed, Sefior Fabie, who is an excellent English scholar and 
speaks our language very fluently, — who is one of the leading 
men in Manila, — said to me that he ventured the prediction 
that in twenty-five years from now, when his people shall 
have fully learned to know and understand the Americans as 
he understands them, when they shall have become acquainted 
with our history as he is, when they shall have learned to 
know our system of government as he does, there would not 
be a single Filipino who would not be as ready to lay down 
his life for the American flag as any native of the United 
States. . . . 

Mr. Chairman, it is proposed by the minority that we with- 
draw from the islands in eight years, and that we then pro- 
claim the Philippines a free and independent nation. I desire 
in this connection and at this time to read again from the 
paragraph of the "Views of the Minority" as to the ability of 
the Filipinos to govern themselves: "Three centuries of Span- 
ish dominion have destroyed all self-government in the Phil- 
ippines, and its people at this time are unprepared for its 
exercise." 

Here is a flat, frank, fair admission that three centuries of 
Spanish oppression have made the natives incapable of self- 
government; and then, in the very next breath, our Demo- 
cratic brethren declare, in effect, that with the stroke of a pen, 
after eight years of tutelage in American methods of govern- 
ment, this unfortunate people can be elevated to a plane that 
it has taken the Anglo-Saxon races eight hundred years of 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT FOR PHILIPPINES. 409 

progressive civilization to attain. [Applause.] I understand 
that the minority has since agreed to modify its views so that 
we shall retire in four years. Here is a tribute to Americans 
as teachers, and to the aptitude of the Filipinos as students, 
that I hardly expected to find coming from the ranks of the 
pessimistic Democracy. But the large majority of Filipinos 
tell us that they do not want independence; that they want to 
continue under the American flag. 

Sir, I am everlastingly opposed to declaring any such policy 
of ''scuttle" at this time. The minority need not delude 
themselves with the fatuous belief that their proposition, if 
adopted, will stop whatever insurrection there may be left re- 
maining in the islands. On the contrary, it will give the 
irreconcilables — such of them as may be left — occasion for 
renewed activity. The printing-presses of the Hongkong 
junta will again be kept busy grinding out new proclamations 
and pronunciamientos from those Filipino jawbone patriots 
who fear to risk their own precious necks in the cause, and 
who, from a safe harbor of refuge, endeavor to stir up insur- 
rection and strife in the islands, so that later on they may — 
as simon-pure, unwhipped, uncaptured, unreconstructed pa- 
triots — establish their rights to the jobs and the places in 
their native land as soon as the minority's programme of 
"scuttle" can be finally consummated. 

I now have in my possession one of these junta circulars. 
They were scattered broadcast throughout the islands. This 
one was issued on July 17, 1900, at the time that there was 
considerable talk of the negotiations for peace in Manila. It 
was given me by Colonel Robert Lee Bullard of the army, who 
found them being distributed among the natives in the islands. 
These self-styled patriots at Hongkong, from their coign of 
vantage, seven hundred miles removed from an American 
rifle, told the natives that " the negotiations for peace in Ma- 
nila was prejudicing the cause and was favoring the re-election 
of McKinley." 

They were too cowardly to take the field themselves, lest 
they might get hurt; but they were willing that the deluded, 
ignorant natives might keep up the struggle, so that ultimately 
they might step in and fill the offices if ever our government 



410 JULIUS KAHN. 

should retire from the islands. I venture the prediction that 
within forty-eight hours after the Democratic policy of "scut- 
tle," as set forth in the minority bill, should be adopted, the 
fires of insurrection would be kindled anew, and woe to the 
future welfare of those Filipinos who have sworn allegiance to 
the United States government. Burial alive, disembowel- 
ment, burning, decapitation, and a dozen other modes of 
cruelty and torture too horrible to contemplate, would be 
their portion. The bloody record that already exists of in- 
human treatment of natives supposed to be friendly to the 
American government would be augmented a thousand-fold. 
On horror's head such horrors would accumulate, that all the 
tears of all the angels could never blot the record out. 

Mr. Chairman, I am uncompromisingly opposed to any such 
proposition. We must hold the islands. Their strategic 
value to this government has already been demonstrated. We 
all remember the fear, the dread, the consternation, the indig- 
nation, and the unspeakable horror that shook the civilized 
nations of the universe when the news was flashed around the 
world that the ministers of the foreign powers stationed at 
Pekin were besieged in their compounds by hordes of fanatical 
and bloodthirsty Chinese Boxers. Fortunately for us, we had 
an army in the Philippines, and for once in its history our 
country did not have to appeal to any foreign power in the 
world to protect the life and property of its minister. [Ap- 
plause.] 

Instead, we were among the first to render aid and assistance 
to the representatives of other nations in a foreign land, and 
when the commanders of the allied foreign forces suggested a 
delay in the forward movement of the relief expedition until 
the arrival of the German troops, it was our own General 
Chaffee who was able to announce that it mattered not what 
others might do, but as for the Americans, they proposed to 
move forward to the relief of the besieged diplomats at once 
and without delay. [Applause.] Indeed, it was an American 
soldier who was the first to scale the walls of Pekin. Sir, every 
American citizen can well be proud of the success of that ener- 
getic, aggressive policy which saved the lives of hundreds of 
men and women, which prevented the torture and massacre of 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT FOR PHILIPPINES. 41 1 

helpless and innocent children, and which was made possible 
by our presence in the Philippines. 

I say that one instance alone should have convinced our 
countrymen that the islands were worth all they had cost us. 
We did not have to lag behind, as too often has been the case 
in our history, but we led the vanguard. " Old Glory," car- 
ried aloft by brave American hands to bring its message of 
comfort and joy to the hearts of those unfortunates besieged 
behind the legation walls in Pekin, never went forth upon a 
holier mission; and by that act of ours, made possible, as I 
have said, by our presence in the Philippine Islands, we estab- 
lished forever American prestige in the land of far Cathay. 

Sir, there is one instance in our national history where the 
policy of "scuttle," after being overwhelmingly repudiated at 
the polls, was, nevertheless, adopted by the then Democratic 
administration. I refer to the " Fifty-four forty, or fight " cam- 
paign of 1844. It is true that when the question of our Oregon 
boundary came up in the Senate in 1846, a large majority of 
the Senators voted to ratify the treaty by which we relin- 
quished all of that territory which is now known as British 
Columbia, and which was embraced between 49° and 54° 40' 
north latitude. All the leading Democratic newspapers of that 
period protested strenuously against this action. The Demo- 
cratic President, in his inaugural and in his first message to 
Congress, unequivocally announced that we should never re- 
cede. But many able men in Congress in those days did not 
think that the country between 49° and 54° 40' was worth 
fighting for, just as many Representatives in our own day and 
time do not think the Philippines worth fighting for, and so 
we relinquished our claims and gave up that valuable terri- 
tory. 

Not threescore years have rolled by since then — and how 
short a time in the life of a nation is sixty years. We have 
learned to realize what a great mistake the policy of "scuttle" 
in 1846 has demonstrated itself to be. Why, sir, if we had 
held our ground at that period, England to-day would not 
have a single port on the Pacific Ocean side of the Ameri- 
can continent. The commerce of the Orient, coming across 
the Pacific, would have to pass through an American port. 



412 JULIUS KAHN. 

There would probably be no Alaskan boundary dispute to 
plague us at this time; and, sir, I for one do not propose, with 
my vote at least, to sanction another mistake of a similar 
character. [Applause.] The value of the islands has already 
been demonstrated to us in the Pekin matter. Let us hold on 
to them for future generations, after our people have had 
ample opportunity to demonstrate the wisdom of holding them 
or the wisdom of withdrawing from them, to decide what is 
best for the welfare of our own country, commensurate with 
the peace, the prosperity, and the happiness of the Filipinos, 
and the development of their native land. 

Mr. Chairman, I believe that the bill presented by the ma- 
jority is a step in the right direction. I believe that it will 
meet with the approval, not only of the people of the United 
States, but also of the Filipino people. They are learning to 
know the true purposes of the American government, and I am 
satisfied that the future will abundantly justify the policies of 
the lamented McKinley and the intrepid Roosevelt. 

President McKinley's instructions to the civil commission 
under Governor Taft, to my mind, will always stand forth as 
one of the wisest, ablest, most erudite, and patriotic state 
papers that ever emanated from the pen of any President of 
the United States. The native Filipinos have already learned 
to love, to honor, to respect, and to admire Governor Taft and 
his colleagues. The commission has won their confidence. 
They have faith in the efforts of the commission, representing 
as it does the people of the United States, in seeking to estab- 
lish stable and suitable provincial and municipal government 
throughout the archipelago. They have begun to realize that 
we have not come among them to absorb their wealth, nor ex- 
ploit their resources solely for our own profit and gain. They 
are rapidly learning that we intend to give them the same 
blessings of civil and religious liberty that we ourselves enjoy. 

Sir, it will not be many years before the predictions of 
Senor Fabie, of which I spoke at the beginning of my address, 
will be fulfilled. In a goodly number of towns which I visited 
in the Philippines, there still remained standing the bamboo 
arches that had been erected by the natives for the Fourth of 
July celebration. I was told that the Filipinos everywhere 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT FOR PHILIPPINES. 413 

participated in those festivities, and that thousands of native 
children had sung our patriotic songs on our country's natal 
day. On the Lunetta, in the city of Manila, a military band 
discourses music every evening about dusk. The last number 
on the programme is always "The Star-Spangled Banner." 
As the first note of the beloved national anthem floats out 
upon the soft, tropical air, every hat is reverently raised and 
the hum of conversation is hushed until the last note of that 
soul-stirring and inspiring melody has faded into the silence 
of the night. 

I could not altogether suppress my emotion when I witnessed 
that, to me, never to be forgotten spectacle, and a vagrant tear 
fell from my eyes, — a tear of earnest thanksgiving and joy at 
witnessing these people, who, three years earlier, had probably 
never known the existence of the great republic across the Pa- 
cific, but who, having already learned a full measure of love 
and admiration for our institutions, thus silently and rever- 
entty saluted the song that represents to all American hearts 
the hopes and aspirations of this majestic nation. [Applause.] 
I thanked God that I was a citizen of that great republic that 
had brought liberty and enlightenment to these eight millions 
of human beings; that had introduced education and freedom 
where before had existed ignorance and intolerance; that had 
lifted up a downtrodden and oppressed race and placed them 
upon a higher plane of civilization than they had ever dreamed 
of, and that asked no greater reward than that they should be 
a loyal, patriotic, and enlightened people under the glorious 
Stars and Stripes. [Loud applause.] 



DR. GEORGE C. PARDEE. 

De. Pardee is a native son of California. He was educated in the 
public schools of Oakland, the University of California, and abroad. 
He is an expert physician, and, like his father before him, has devoted 
his studies to the diseases of the eye, ear, and throat. In public life, he 
stands for good citizenship, and has always taken an active interest in 
public affairs. He served as mayor of Oakland, and was elected governor 
of California, November 4, 1902. The following extract from a campaign 
speech is offered as a fair example of his work as a public speaker. 

CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 

I stand here this evening to address an audience of the 
people of my native city, and I want to say to you, that while 
I live in Oakland, nearly half my life has been spent on this 
side of the great bajr, whose ever-changing beauties I look for- 
ward to with keenest pleasure as I make my daily trips across 
its wide expanse. My earliest recollections are of San Fran- 
cisco, — not the San Francisco of to-day, with its splendid 
buildings, its well-kept streets, its brilliant electric lights and 
swiftly moving trolleys, its magnificent park, its four hundred 
thousand people, and the thousand and one things of this 
twentieth century that make it far and away the metropolis of 
the Pacific Coast, — the city to which turn again all who by 
fortune or misfortune are banished from it. No; my earliest 
recollection of San Francisco is the San Francisco of forty 
years ago, wind-swept, with clouds of stinging sand swept ever 
eastward by the bracing summer trades; its streets, plank- 
covered, echoing to the rattling wheels of passing drays; its 
fifty thousand people knowing nothing of street-cars nor elec- 
tric lights, nor even gas; its Market Street a valley 'twixt the 
ever-encroaching sand-dunes; its tallest building (a wonder in 
those days) towering heavenward four full, mighty stories; 
the present position of the Palace Hotel then occupied by a 
majestic sand-hill that separated Montgomery Street from 
Happy Valley; its water-front serrated by the many private 

414 



CAMPAIGN SPEECH. 415 

wharves that stretched their fingers toward deep water; its 
schools but few, and not approaching those we have to-day; 
the Cliff House, the Willows, and Russ Gardens its only places 
of outdoor amusement, — this was San Francisco as I knew her 
first, the San Francisco of nearly half a century ago. And yet 
I loved her then, with all her imperfections, and I love her 
now, crowned as she is with all that passing years have placed 
within her grasp, a city that has in a short fifty years ad- 
vanced from wind-swept wastes to the magnificent proportions 
she has now attained. [Applause.] 

You will therefore, I hope, pardon me for saying that I am 
proud indeed to stand here this evening before the people of my 
native city, the nominee of the great Republican party for the 
highest office within the gift of the people of my native state. 

When Greece became a prey to the predatory rich, and her 
common people became debased, debauched, and ground down 
into the dust, Greece's greatness departed from her, and she 
fell to swift and certain ruin. Rome, too, forgetting that upon 
her common people rested the greatness of her mighty empire, 
neglected her common people, and Rome, like Greece, declined 
and fell. And who has forgotten the horrors of the French 
Revolution, when the nobles, drunk with their own power, en- 
slaved the common people, and preyed upon them? I love my 
country, and I shudder at the thought of the possibilit}' of our 
common people being deprived of a single right or benefit to 
which the best American is entitled. When that dread day 
shall come, — when the American common people, when the 
working-man and the working-woman, are held back and re- 
strained, when they are not urged forward to higher and higher 
planes, when our schools and our universities are not freely 
opened to their children, when they are not upheld and sus- 
tained in every endeavor that may make to make better citi- 
zens of themselves, — when that dread day shall come, and 
only then, can any man predict the swift and certain fall of 
the American nation and the extinction of American liberty. 

I am glad whenever an American working-man can add one 
dime to his daily wage. I am glad, because I know that with 
every increase in his wages he is able to add more comforts 
and more luxuries to his home; that his wife and children 
will be better housed, better fed, and better clothed; that then 



416 DR. GEORGE C. PARDEE. 

his children will be sent longer to school, and thus become 
better and more intelligent citizens, from whom will come the 
future great men of our country. For it is a fact well known 
to all of us that our greatest men, our Lincolns, our Garfields, 
and our McKinleys, spring from our common people. And I 
rejoice when the laboring man is able to cut down the time 
that he spends at his daily toil. I rejoice because I feel that 
ever} 7 minute he is able to cut off from the time he spends at 
the work-bench can be given to his own uplifting and the bet- 
terment of the condition of his family, — that most important 
basis upon which is erected the superstructure of our American 
institutions. I feel that the more time a man can give to his 
wife and children, the better that man, that wife, and those 
children will be. And the better men and women and chil- 
dren we have, the better it will be for all Americans, and the 
more enduring and glorious will be the American nation. 
[Applause.] Therefore, I say, I am glad when the working- 
man adds one dime to his daily wage, and I rejoice when he 
cuts off another hour from his daily toil. 

Show me the American man who is ashamed of the fact that 
his father or his grandfather was a working-man, and I will 
show you a degenerate American unworth} 7 of the proud heri- 
tage left him by the heroes of Bunker Hill. My father was a 
cooper (and a good cooper, too,) in his early life, and was 
never ashamed to tell of it. Many of my closest relatives are 
farmers and mechanics, and neither they nor I are ashamed of 
it. And many of my closest friends, men whom I have known 
all my life, with whom I went to school, whose children are 
playmates and schoolmates of my children, who call me by 
my first name, are working-men — and neither they nor I feel 
ashamed to tell of it. [Applause.] 

In short, my friends, I am, I hope, too good an American, 
with love of country and countrymen too deeply bred within 
me, to be unfriendly toward or to proscribe any of my fellow- 
citizens on account of either their occupation, their religion, 
or their honest opinions. Our constitution and our laws guar- 
antee to every man " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness," and I am glad indeed to have them all given the 
opportunity for better lives, more liberty, and greater happi- 
ness. [Applause.] 



EDWARD J. LIVEMASH. 

Mr. Livernash, as writer and orator, represents the nervous, intelli- 
gent type. He does not deal in sledge-hammer blows, but in saber- 
strokes. He handles words with great skill, and his catholicity of view 
is remarkable. 

THE SPIRIT OF COMMERCIALISM. 

Rice, or beef; the cold philosophy of Confucius, or the 
Sermon on the Mount; the race that has given us Plato, Jesus 
Christ, Shakespeare, and Lincoln, or the race standing with 
sullenness and menace under the Yellow Dragon — which? 
There is the world-problem presented by the awakening of 
China; by the disposition of capital to encourage immigration 
of Chinamen to this country; by the eagerness of exploiters to 
force twentieth-century ideas and practices into a nation which 
has been stagnant for ages. 

Comparatively few grasp the tremendous seriousness of the 
Asiatic question. It is not a question for the working classes 
of the Pacific Coast exclusively, nor yet for the working classes 
of the United States, nor even for the people of North America. 
It is vital to the whole Caucasian world. We cannot suffer 
our country to be invaded by the men of Asia, we cannot stir 
the Middle Kingdom into industrial activity of modern scope, 
without endangering the civilization which has flowered in the 
Venus of Milo, the Raphael Madonnas, the Cathedral at Milan, 
Paradise Lost, the Moonlight Sonata, and the Declaration of 
Independence. 

In China, four hundred million representatives of the Mon- 
golian race are gathered, — one third of all the human beings 
on the earth. Remote periods have known of movements of 
that race threatening to overwhelm Europe; but, generally 
speaking, it has been content to remain in splendid isolation. 

In these times, however, the spirit of commercialism among 
men of our kind seems determined to break down that isola- 

417 



418 



EDWARD J. LIVERNASH. 



tion; and thoughtful observers must view with alarm the signs 
following our efforts to stir into quickness the sluggish conser- 
vatism which for centuries has been our safeguard, and to at- 
tract to the western hemisphere the hordes congesting the Far 
East. 

Would that it were given me to sound a note so clear as 
to arouse some of my fellow-countrymen to the peril of this 
quickening of China and the madness of this courting an in- 
vasion from Asia. I tremble when I think what possibilities 
lie in stirring that terrible people across the sea into industrial 
effectiveness, into political greatness, into a willingness to mi- 
grate, into — well, that is the terrifying problem — into what? 
Who shall say? We may be loosing the whirlwind. The 
machinery, the information, we are introducing into China 
(and against the will of the Chinese, let us remember) may be 
turned against us a little further on — may become machinery 
and information for the destruction of our industrial prosper- 
ity and our social supremacy. Enlightened students of mod- 
ern China agree in the belief that the Chinese possess the 
latent skill out of which may speedily come conditions making 
them a great exporting nation. 

Of the dangers the American capitalist is, alas! not heedful. 
I regret to have to say that my observations in Washington 
have shown me conclusively that the spirit of American plu- 
tocracy is strongly in favor of battering down all bulwarks 
designed to protect America from the Yellow Peril. If you 
had seen what I have seen and heard what I have heard, you 
would indeed feel deeply that something should be done to 
testify to Washington that the Pacific Coast has not altered in 
its hostility to whatever tends to bring our people into com- 
petition with the yellow race. Within the next two years 
China may denounce the Gresham treaty; and when that 
treaty fails, the entire Chinese question will be reopened. It 
will fare ill with you, and ill with our nation, if the termina- 
tion of that treaty is not preceded by some stern signs of fidel- 
ity on our part to the policy of safeguarding our race. I have 
faith in you, men of California. You will speak out. You are 
in earnest. You see your duty, and will not fail in the hour of 
need. 



REV. PETER C. YORKE. 

The Rev. Father Yorke has a remarkable gift of oratory. There 
is the glow of genial wit and humor in his public addresses. His public 
speeches have had a wider influence than those of any other man on 
the Pacific Coast. His addresses from the pulpit have all the reserve 
of the priest, and he resembles in manner the great pulpit orator of 
Boston, the Rev. Phillips Brooks. There is no reserve, however, in his 
speeches to his favorite audiences, the men of the labor unions. Here 
he has the spontaneity, the enthusiasm, the wit, the brilliance, and the 
appeal of the great orator. The extract published is a newspaper 
report of a recent address. 

"WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?" 

In the old days, ladies and gentlemen, it was the custom in 
the cities to have watchmen to guard the walls thereof. 
Around the circuit they went, and up and down the streets, 
from time to time calling out the hour. And often and often, 
from battlement and from casement, a voice went out to the 
watchman of the street, asking him, "Watchman, what of the 
night?" We can well understand that when skies were serene 
and when troubles were afar off, when everything was at 
peace, there would be little anxiety in that cry. But you can 
well understand that in times of stress and storm, when the 
sky was dark, and clouds hung low upon the earth, with what 
heartfelt desire that cry would ring out in the night. 

This period in which we live is the culmination of a period 
of unrest. It would seem as if the time has come when the 
very foundations of the deep sea move. The nineteenth cen- 
tury was the heritage of political unrest. The revolutionary 
rebellion which founded the United States government was 
felt in Europe. The middle of the last century was the signal 
for the outbreak of what may be called scientific infidelity. 
Men's minds were unsettled by the great discoveries in physi- 
cal science; they gained a new outlook upon nature; and men 
have now begun to contemplate all the phenomena, mental 

419 




420 REV. PETEE C. YORKE. 

and physical, from another side, and have imagined that the 
change of years meant a change in the features of the land- 
scape, — imagined that because they had shifted their position 
the eternal truths have changed; and they have proclaimed to 
the world that the old religions were dead forever, and the new 
religion would come, which would recognize neither God in 
heaven nor devil in hell, — only the mind and the intellect of 
humanity. 

And, added to this, ladies and gentlemen, we have, as a 
consequence of the religious unrest, and of that political unrest 
which has been ours, what is known as the social unrest. Not 
only are men struggling in things political for better condi- 
tions, not only are they divided and wandering and groping 
about in things religious, but when it comes down to the very 
foundations of society, to the very fundamental and elementary 
relations of man to man, down to the very heart of the social 
organism, we find men and women differing one from the 
other. And while it is felt perhaps more in Europe, yet even 
here we feel that the foundations of the great deep are being 
moved. We have had our time of Coxeyism, our time when 
the armies of working-men were walking abroad in the streets, 
crying for bread. Then the scene changed again, and pros- 
perity, as it is called, was restored, and with prosperity disap- 
peared the hordes of marching working-men. But we have 
learned to look for seasons of prosperity and seasons of de- 
pression. We have learned to calculate the time during which 
prosperity shall reign. We have learned to calculate every 
day when the spring shall be tightened upon us. 

We have learned to look for discontent and unrest when 
there is no bread to be eaten, and we have learned to look for 
content when prosperity is in the land. But the last few years 
have shown us that the unrest has not altogether been conse- 
quent upon scarcity of bread. Our working-men are no longer 
considering whether they have plenty of money to spend 
to-day, or whether they have no money with which to buy the 
necessaries of life. We have found out that the working-man 
is looking ahead, looking around him, looking forward, and 
that he is comparing his wages and the remuneration which 
he receives with the work which he does, and that the work 



''WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?" 421 

which he does to-day should be paid, not only with such wages 
as will keep himself and his family for to-day, but that he is 
entitled to as much over and above that as will provide for the 
rainy day. 

And thus, in the midst of the greatest prosperity that this 
or any other country has ever seen, we have the social unrest 
among us; we have the working-men gathering together in 
their great armies; we have strikes which shake the social 
fabric; we have the minds of all men turned towards this 
social question, and wondering, What are the working-men 
about to do next? 

The right of man to the fruits of his own labor, the right 
which a man has to the work of his own hands, the right to a 
fair wage for fair work, is another of the fundamental truths 
upon which society rests. If you deny the right of private 
property, if you refuse men the right to hold that which they 
have earned for their own, civilization will quickly disappear 
from the face of the earth. The stability of the family and 
the right to private property are two principles without which 
our society cannot exist. 

In the days of Henry VIII. the Church stood against the 
King for the unity of the family, and refused to grant a 
divorce. It was said that the divorce could be used temper- 
ately; that it could be used to correct great and acknowledged 
evils. It was argued that it was cruel to compel a man and a 
woman to live together who were not congenial, and that there 
was only one remedy for this thing, and that that was divorce. 
When the Church stood against that principle, when she said, 
" This is not legal," when she preferred to let the richest king- 
dom in Europe go by the board rather than grant a divorce, 
men said she was old-fashioned, she was too conservative, she 
was not up to the times, she could not meet the problems of 
the day, she could not answer the question, "Watchman, what 
of the night?" 

But to-day, let me ask you, in this city of San Francisco, 
which was right, — the old Church, or the spirit of the age? 
Do you not always hear the hum of the divorce-mill? and do 
you not see your papers day by day filled with the names of 
those who have rushed lightly into marriage, and who have 



422 REV. PETER C. YORKE. 

rushed lightly out of the yoke? In a country where one out 
of every eight marriages is a failure, and where the proportion 
is growing day by day, where it would seem that the time has 
come when the women of America shall number the years, not 
by dating from the days of our Lord, but by the husband they 
had in such and such a year. The family is, as it were, the 
brick of which the house is built. What kind of a house would 
that be where one out of every eight bricks was crumbling 
away? 

I do not suppose there was ever a political campaign waged 
in America that had so much to say about labor and about 
wages and about good times. The great agitations which are 
going on amongst us are for better wages, for shorter hours, 
for more to eat, for better things to wear, and for a better time. 
Our wars of expansion are no longer wars of glory, — they are 
wars of markets ; and each political party is trying to outshout 
the other in its declarations of what it will do for the people. 

And this brings me to the present political situation of man- 
kind in general. We have a standing lesson to the whole 
world in the case of China. Several thousands and thousands 
of years ago there was a great philosopher called Confucius, 
and this philosopher took it into his head that he was deputed 
to instruct the Chinese in the way in which they should con- 
duct themselves, and he instructed them so effectively that 
they have walked in his ways ever since. The maxim of 
Confucius was that men should pay no attention whatever to 
things that were beyond their ken; that they should consider 
nothing but the things that they could handle, the things they 
could see, and the things they could taste; and he told them 
it was enough for them to look out for the present world, and 
to let the next world take care of itself. And so it is in this 
great material agitation in which we are engaged, when men 
are speaking to us merely of the things of this life, and telling 
us to look out for the betterment of our condition. This dan- 
ger is a real danger, and can be guarded against only by an 
organization, by an authority that will stand in the midst of 
you, and will say, " Lift up your hearts." 



DAVID STARR JORDAN. 

President Jokdan is not an orator. He is not even a talker, but he 
is a great reader. There is no one who reads a manuscript more effec- 
tively, — that is, there is no one can give the rising inflection to bring 
out the thought strikingly, better than the president of Stanford Uni- 
versity. The following is inserted as an example of his logical, epi- 
grammatic style. 

THE STRENGTH OF BEING CLEAN. 

I wish to make a plea for sound and sober life. I wish to 
base this plea on the fact that to be clean is to be strong; that 
sinfulness makes for feebleness, and vice for decay. If I were 
to take a text, it would be this: "If sinners entice thee, con- 
sent thou not!" But I should change this to read: "If sin 
entice thee, consent thou not"; for the enticement which leads 
to sin comes from our own ill-governed impulses, more often 
than from the persuasions of others. 

When I was a boy, I once had a primer which gave the 
names of many things which were good and many which were 
bad. Good things were faith, hope, charity, virtue, integrity, 
and the like, while anger, wrath, selfishness, and trickery were 
rightly put down as bad. But among the good things the 
primer placed "adversity." This I could not understand, and 
I remember to this day how I was puzzled by it. The name 
"adversity" had a pretty sound, but I found that the mean- 
ing w r as the same as "bad luck." How can bad luck be a 
good thing? 

Now that I have grown older, and have watched men's lives 
and actions for many years, I can see how bad luck is good. 
It depends on the way in which we take it. If we yield, and 
break down under it, it is not good; but neither are we good. 
It is not in the luck, but in ourselves, that the badness is. 
But if we take hold of bad luck bravefully, manfully, we may 
change it into good luck, and when we do so, we make our- 

423 



424 DAVID STARR JORDAN. 

selves stronger for the next struggle. It was a fable of the 
Norsemen, that when a man won a victory over another, the 
strength of the conquered went over into his veins. This old 
fancy has its foundation in fact. Whoever has conquered for- 
tune has luck on his side for the rest of his life. 

So adversity is good, if only we know how to take it. Shall 
we shrink under it, or shall we react against it? Shall we 
yield, or shall we conquer? To react against adversity is to 
make fortune our servant. Its strength goes over to us. To 
yield is to make us fortune's slave. Our strength is turned 
against us in the pressure of circumstances. A familiar illus- 
tration of what I mean by reaction is this: Why do men stand 
upright? It is because the earth pulls them down. If a man 
yields to its attraction, he soon finds himself prone on the 
ground. In this attitude he is helpless. He can do nothing 
there; so he reacts against the force of gravitation. He stands 
upon his feet; and the more powerful the force may be, the 
more necessary it is that the active man should resist it. 
When the need for activity ceases, man no longer stands erect. 
He yields to the force he has resisted. When he is asleep, the 
force of gravitation has its own way, so far as his posture is 
concerned. But activity and life demand reaction, and it is 
only through resistance that man can conquer adversity. . . . 

While all this is true, I do not wish to take an extreme po- 
sition. I do not care to sit in judgment on the tired woman 
who finds comfort in a cup of tea, or on the man who finds a 
bottle of claret or a glass of beer an aid to digestion. A glass 
of light wine, by a trick on the glands of the stomach, may 
spur them to better action. These influences are the white 
lies of physiology. A cup of coffee may give an apparent 
strength we greatly need. A good cigar may soothe the 
nerves. A bottle of cool beer on a hot day may be refreshing; 
a white lie oils the hinges of society. 

I make no attack on the use of claret at dinner, or beer as 
medicine. This is a matter of taste, though it is not to my 
taste. Each of these drugs leaves a scar on the nerves; a 
small scar, if you please, and we cannot go through the battle 
of life without many scars of one kind or another. Moderate 
drinking is not so very bad, so long as it stays moderate. It 



THE STRENGTH OF BEING CLEAN. 425 

is much like moderate lying, or, to use Beecher's words, like 
"beefsteak with incidental arsenic." It will weaken your will 
somewhat, but maybe you are strong enough for that. It was 
once supposed that intemperance was like gluttony; the ex- 
cessive use of that which was good. It was not then known 
that all nerve-exciters contain a specific poison, and that in 
this poison such apparent pleasure as they seem to give must 
lie. 

Use these drugs, if you can afford it. There are many 
worthy gentlemen who use them all in moderation, and who 
have the strength to abstain from what they call their abuse. 
You will find among drinkers and smokers some of the best 
men you know, while some of the greatest scoundrels alive are 
abstemious to the last degree. They dare not be otherwise; 
they need all the strength and cunning they have to use in 
their business. Wine loosens the tongue and lets fly the 
secrets of guilt. But whatever others may do or seem to do 
with impunity, you cannot afford to imitate them. You know 
less of the world than they do, and less of yourselves. You 
are nearer to temptation, and if you are tempted, and fall, it 
will be harder for you to recover. But whatever you do, let 
it be of your own free choice. Count all the cost. Take your 
stand, whatever it may be, with open eyes, and hold it with- 
out regret. There is nothing more hopeless than the ineffec- 
tive remorse of a man who drinks and wishes that he did n't. 
If you don't want to do a thing, then don't do it. The only 
way to reform is to stop, stop, stop! and go at once to doing 
something else. 

But whatever you may think or do as to table-drinking and 
the like, there is no question as to the evil of perpendicular 
drinking, or drinking for drink's sake. Men who drink in 
saloons do so, for the most part, for the wrench on the nervous 
system. They drink to forget. They drink to be happy. 
They drink to be drunk. Sometimes it is a periodical attack 
of madness. Sometimes it is a chronic thirst. Whichever it 
is, its indulgence destroys the soundness of life; it destroys 
accuracy of thought and action. It destroys wisdom and vir- 
tue. It destroys faith, and hope, and love. It brings a train 
of subjective horrors, which the terrified brain cannot inter- 



426 DAVID STARE JORDAN. 

pret, and which we call delirium tremens, — the tremendous 
madness. This is mania indeed, but every act which injures 
the faithfulness of the nervous system is a step in this terrible 
direction. . . . 

"What a world this would be without coffee," said one old 
pessimist to another, as they sat and growled together at an 
evening reception. " What a world it is with coffee," said 
the other; for he knew that the only solace coffee could give 
was, that it seemed for the moment to repair the injury its 
own excessive use had brought. 

There was once, I am told, a merchant who came into his 
office smacking his lips, and said to his clerk, "The world 
looks very different to the man who has had a good glass of 
brandy and soda in the morning." — "Yes," said the clerk, 
"and the man looks different to the world too." . . . 

First of these comes vulgarity. To be vulgar is to do that 
which is not the best of its kind. It is to do poor things in 
poor ways, and to be satisfied with that. Vulgarity weakens 
the mind, and thus brings all other weaknesses in its train. It 
is vulgar to wear dirty linen when one is not engaged in dirty 
work. It is vulgar to like poor music, to read weak books, to 
feed on sensational newspapers, to trust to patent medicines, to 
be amused by trashy novels, to enjoy vulgar theaters, to tol- 
erate coarseness and looseness in any of their myriad forms. 
We find the corrosion of vulgarity everywhere, and its poison 
enters every home. The bill-boards of our cities are covered 
with its evidence; our newspapers are redolent with it; our 
story-books reek with it; our schools are tainted by it; and we 
cannot keep it out of our homes, or our churches, or our col- 
leges. 

A form of vulgarity is profanity. It is the sign of a dull, 
coarse, unrefined nature. There are times, perhaps, when pro- 
fanity is picturesque and effective. In Arizona, sometimes it 
is so, and I have seen it so in Wyoming. But not indoors, 
nor in the streets, nor under normal conditions. It is then 
simply an insult to the atmosphere, which is vulgarized for 
the purpose. It is not that profanity is offensive to God. He 
may deal with it in his own way. It is offensive to man, and 
destructive to him. It hurts the man who uses it. " What 



THE STRENGTH OF BEING CLEAN. 427 

cometh out of a man defileth him," and the man thus defiled 
extends his corrosion to others. The open door of the saloon 
makes it a center of corrosion, and the miserable habit of 
"treating," which we call American, but which exists wher- 
ever the tippling-house exists, spreads and intensifies it. 

Temptation will be in the path of man forever. It is good 
for him, as adversity is, but vulgar corrosion is like poisoned 
water. Whatever our relation to it, it can only bring us harm. 

" A man ought to be stronger than anything that can happen 
to him." He is the strong man who can say "No." He is the 
wise man who for all his life can keep mind and soul and body 
clean. 

"I know of no more encouraging fact," says Thoreau, "than 
the ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. 
It is something to paint a particular picture, or to carve a 
statue, and so make a few objects beautiful. It is far more 
glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium 
through which we look. This, morally, we can do." 



BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER. 

Peesident Wheelee belongs more to the West than to the East. 
His early life seemed merely a preparation for the intellectual work re- 
quired for the development of the new Pacific. He has delivered many 
notable addresses. The editor, however, in making a selection, decided 
on his first address to the students of the University of California as 
being the most typical. 



INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 

Students of the University of California, — I rejoice 
that my first introduction to the University takes the form of 
an introduction to you. Thus far, this University has been to 
me more or less a thing of the imagination. I have known of 
it in the form of statutes and reports, names and titles, forms 
and observances. I have seen its admirable register; I have 
seen its honorable governing board in session; I have seen its 
buildings, its equipments, its mechanism, its gardens, and its 
trees. But now, standing here in the golden sunlight, by its 
help, under this real blue canopy, I look into the faces of the 
real blue and gold that constitute the real, living University 
of California. 

Now, from this hour, I know that I am a member in a real 
and living association, because I am joined in association with 
men. The only thing that is of interest to me in a university 
is men and women. As long as I live, I trust I may never be 
interested in a university of mechanisms, reports, and papers, 
but only in a university of human beings. 

It has been a solicitude on my part lest in entering a presi- 
dential office I might be so absorbed in administrative things 
that my own loved teaching might be taken away from me, 
and it will be a disappointment to me if in any way my work 
here shall separate me from an active interest in student 
affairs. Almost the only consolation I have, this morning, in 
entering upon my work is the belief that I am going to know 

428 



INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 429 

you and to have to do with you intimately; for all this work 
of the presidential office is burden and care. It is only done 
in order that the real thing may be reached, the real object, — 
the bringing forward of a university made up of students. 

I want you to find in me — to believe from the beginning 
and throughout that you have in me — a personal friend. I 
shall regard my mission here as a failure if that is not the 
case. I want you to come to see me, and to come to me as 
persons. Tell me your names, I beg of you, tell me your names 
whenever you see me; for whenever I see a man I have seen 
before, I am apt to remember him, and to remember a good 
deal about him — almost everything except his name. So, 

please come to me and say my name is , and if it happens 

to be Smith, give the initials. 

Now, there are a great many things that I am moved to say 
on this occasion. This is a stimulating sight. This golden 
sunshine coming down in genial, lazy haze, smiling upon the 
ripened brown of these magnificent hills, reminds me of my 
beloved Greece. It is more than Hellas that we have here. 
Greece looked out toward the old Oriental world; Berkeley 
looks out through the Golden Gate toward the Oriental world 
that has meaning for to-day. 

A university is not a place where you come as empty buckets 
to the well to be filled with water or anything else. People 
are going to pump things into you, to be sure, but you are 
going to pour most of it out again. I believe, from my own ex- 
perience, that, after all, we have to take upon ourselves the con- 
solation that does us the most good which we forget most en- 
tirely. Those things that hover on the superficies of the mind 
are oftener a stumbling-block than a help. It is what goes 
over into spinal marrow, into real life, that makes us; and 
what we are going to get out of our university life is not bits 
of knowledge, is not maxims and rules for getting this or that, 
but, after all, it is the one thing which we talk so much about 
and understand so imperfectly: it is character. The men you 
tie to are men of character. As I grow older, I come less and 
less to respect men of brilliancy, and to tie to men for their 
character. And what men are going to get out of their uni- 
versity life is, not what is pumped into the pail, but what goes 



430 BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER. 

over into life. And it comes not only from the lecture-room, 
but from association with the best minds we find here in the 
student body, — association with the whole life and character 
of the University. 

This University is a living thing; the real University is 
alive. Blood pulses through its veins. The spiritual life of 
the men who have gone before is in it. It is not a thing of 
buildings, nor of statutes, nor of courses; it is a thing of life. 
And what you will get out of this University that is worth 
your while, that will stand by you, is what you will get out of 
association with it as a living thing.] §iw a university, or else- 
where in the world, heart is more than head, and love is more 
than reason. 






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♦tphwT/k* ^ JL^ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 

V* V ° ^ Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 



***V VO|^** ** V % ^Ifilf *° ^"V *™ PreservationTechnologie; 

\D * *?..•* A <T **? W ^ ?b *' * W0RL ° LEADER ' N "LLECTIONS PRESERVATI ' 

*> A± „** <* •* A U ^ 111 Thomson Park Drive,- 

A* t° '» ^ Cranberry Township, PA 16066 



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Township, 
(724)779-2111 



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